HELP! Wanted
by TheZorker
Summary: When a Navy Admiral's son disappears, NCIS is called into investigate. The last known whereabouts? Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
1. Day 1:Better than a Koala on a Submarine

_ Sarah McGee holding a phone to her ear, with a business card in her hand._

* * *

A young man sat in the security office, hurriedly taping a bottle of water to his shirt. He glanced to a small display to his left: 5:15, 2%.

He took out his cell phone, and his wallet, placing them on the desk. Was the phone guy right? Would the company not report him missing?

He'd taken too many risks. But he needed to know.

And he was about to find out.

A few minutes later, the fan that was in the office died. The light in the office died. He closed his eyes, and took a deep steadying breath.

The bear appeared a few minutes later, laughing that laugh of his. The music box began to play. "It wasn't me," he said, his voice shaking. "Let me help you find out who it was. I want to help. It wasn't me! It's NOT ME!"

At 6:30, when the staff came in, there was no sign of their night shift watchmen.

1:30 PM  
NCIS Squad Room

"You've got to be kidding me, if I stare at these cold cases any longer, I'll get a break. In my temples," Dinozzo complained.

"Tell me about it," McGee concurred, "If it gets any slower up here, the Director's threatened to reassign me back to Cybercrimes."

"Really?" Bishop asked, looking up from her computer, probably taking another online NCIS training course. "He'd actually do that?"

"It's how McDos was introduced to our new director," Tony said. Then he shuddered. "He wouldn't put me back on a ship, would he?"

"His kids are on spring break," McGee reminded him. "He's taking a few days off."

"But I might!" said Gibbs, walking into the squad room. "Grab your gear!"

"Dead body, boss?" Dinozzo said, trying not to sound relieved.

"Gassing the van, boss," McGee said, grabbing the keys Gibbs tossed in his direction. "Where are we headed?"

"No. Downtown Rockville," he replied in order.

"I told myself never to go back there," Dinozzo mumbled.

2:15 PM  
Rockville, Maryland

It felt odd coming up on a crime scene without Ducky and Palmer present. It wasn't unexpected as there was no one to autopsy, but it still didn't happen very often.

"Freddy Fazbear's Pizza?" McGee asked dubiously. Fazbear's was probably the largest tenant of the strip mall. The logo, showing four anthropomorphized animals, eager to meet the incoming guests, was ringed with golden neon. The windows looked into the main eating and gaming area. A large door was propped open, letting in the warm spring air.

"Home of cheap arcade games, cheap pizza, and and a cheap animatronic band," Dinozzo said, climbing out of the van, joining his fellow very special agent.

"That'd make it your kind of place, right, Tony?" McGee needled.

"So, what are we here for?" Bishop asked, taking in the sounds of laughing children and electronic games coming from the door.

"Mike Schmidt," Gibbs said.

"Who?"

"Age 26, was the night security guard of Freedy Fazbears," Gibbs said, heading for the door. "Missing about thirty six hours ago, last seen here."

The three team members exchanged looks. "What makes this our case?" Dinozzo asked.

"His father's a two star admiral at Bethesda NNMC. Rockville PD and the FBI are fine with us taking the case. Besides, Dee-no-zo, I thought you were bored. You can always go back to the cold cases," Gibbs said, pushing his way into the restaurant.

"On your six boss!"

2:25 PM

Bishop and Dinozzo had been assigned to photograph the security station, the last known whereabouts. The manager's office was a small, but not cramped, room, just inside the restaurant proper. It was nestled between the eating area and the security room itself. McGee had been assigned the interview the manager, one Larry Bryant. Larry was a middle age gentlemen in a button down shirt, wearing a Fazbear's Pizza name tag with his full name in blue lettering. He gave an impression of being overworked and under-budgeted.

"Mike?" Larry repeated. "I liked Mike. Came in on time, always was good to the janitorial staff as they were leaving, greeted me with a smile when I'd come in at 7:00 AM sharp." Larry threw up his hands. "Sometimes I hate this place. I'm about to be on my third security guard in three weeks. Like this place has anything worth stealing."

"I don't know," McGee said, looking at the nearly full party room. "The kids all seem to be having a good time."

Larry broke into a smile, "Yeah. Kids love Freddy," he looked though his window to the show stage, where Freddy had just finished his song, and was leaning down to hug one of the children. "Always have. They love kids, too. Never seen them give adults the time of day, though. Mostly just ignore them." He shrugged. "Weird programming, I guess. When they had the larger place, I heard they were allowed to roam all over the place."

"Third security guard in three weeks?" Gibbs asked.

"One to be hired," Larry said. "Know anyone? I got business cards. Otherwise I'm covering again." he told them, handing cards out to both Gibbs and McGee. "Then there's Mike. Then there was," he thought back. "Nick. Nicholas Peterson. Yeah, that was it." He looked up at Gibbs stone face. "You want his address. I'll get it. Only lasted a three days. Bit of a jerk, really."

"Any of them have an enemies?" Gibbs asked.

Larry shook his head. "Don't think so, but I didn't know them that well. I mean, the night shift guard's only real responsibility to make sure nothing messes with the animatronics. It's barely more than a minimum wage job. A lot of them bring books or homework or stuff." He shrugged, then let out a yawn. "Sorry. Like I said, covered the night shift last night."

Gibbs snapped his notebook shut. "Alright. We'll be in touch."

A sudden **WHAM! WHAM! **came from the door, surprising everyone in the office.

"Get that for me, would you?" asked Larry, a wry smile on his face.

Gibbs turned to the door, opening it.

A middle age woman stood in it, a young girl pulling at her arm, in the opposite direction of the door. "Are you the manager here?" she demanded.

Gibbs rolled his eyes, and jerked his thumb at Larry in the chair behind him.

"Mom, I'm telling you, there's nothing..."

"What are you doing, putting children around those creepy..."

"Mom, they're not creepy!"

Larry let loose a sigh. "Look, I understand. They look just human enough that some people have that reaction. It's called the uncanny vall..."

"And there's that smell!"

Larry's face took on an exhausted look. "What smell? We've had inspectors here several times. No smell."

"Then maybe it's the pizza," she countered. "Smells like rotting meat."

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," Larry said, putting his hands palm up, plaintively.

"Hmph," she said, stomping away.

Larry sighed. "That one I can't explain. We've had health inspectors over here so many times... never find anything. But people keep insisting. Normally, I'd say where there's smoke, there's fire, but I can't figure it out either."

Gibbs gave a half smile, "Let's take a look around."

2:30 PM

The security station was in the back, and consisted of a fan, a desk, and a couple of buttons for lights and really large security doors. Currently consisting of Bishop, Dinozzo, and Phil, the daytime guard, it made for some cramped quarters. At the moment, Bishop held the Fazbear security tablet. "So, this tablet is connected to all the cameras?" Bishop said. "Kind of neat. Choose a camera on the map, just tap and view."

"No recordings though. What would they do if something actually happened?"

Phil, dressed in his Fazbear security uniform, shrugged. "I asked the same thing. Apparently, the owner's some kind of skinflint, and won't pay for it."

"So you're in here the whole day?" Dinozzo asked.

"Eh. I wander around as well, make it look like I'm being productive," he said. He tapped his tablet. "I don't like those animatronics, though. Every time they get a look at me, I swear their expression changes. They bare their teeth, or something." He shuddered.

"Bah. No worse than Chucky," Dinozzo said.

"Wait. The rat? He's not even..."

"The doll."

"Oh. Was never a fan of horror flicks," Phil admitted. "Anyway, it's already claustrophobic in here. I'll go for a walk, leave you two to it."

"One last question," Bishop said, "What's with the doors? Those seem insanely heavy for a kid's pizza restaurant."

"You'd have to ask the owner. Even Larry couldn't tell me why we have such crazy things. Our best bet is that they were here when the place was refurbished into the restaurant, and they just kept intact." Phil shrugged and departed.

Between Bishop and Tony, they took pictures of all the children's artwork, the desk, the floor, and the two doors, none of which showed signs of foul play. Just to be safe, they sprayed the area down with Luminol, then they took out the portable UV light and swept the area, but found no blood.

"That's pretty thorough," Tony said, "Pretty sure nothing actually happened here."

3:00 PM

"So what do we have?" asked Gibbs as they clambered back into the van.

"Not a lot. His car's still here. Wallet and phone were on the desk, no sign that anyone broke in. Though the lack of anyone actually recording the cameras mean it certainly could have happened."

"Those doors belong on a panic room," Bishop said. "Nobody's getting into that room if Mike's doesn't want it to happen. So I'm pretty sure he wasn't kidnapped from the restaurant."

"That reminds me, boss," McGee said. "Could you smell anything on the main stage? After that interruption, I thought something would be potent, but I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary."

"Yep," Gibbs replied, but didn't elaborate.

There was a moment of expectant silence as everyone got buckled up.

"I'll look into his credit cards and bank accounts when we get back, see if there's been any recent activity," McGee said.

"I'll call the Admiral, try to get a list of friends and relations, cross check it against the numbers on his phone." said Tony.

Gibbs turned to Bishop. He raised an eyebrow

"His home?" Bishop offered. "See if we can get his computer?"

"Good. You're with me."

5:15 PM

"What've we got?" demanded Gibbs as he came off the elevator.

"The computer's safe in Abby's lab," Bishop reported. "She's already gone home for the day, but I'm sure she'll get to it first thing this morning."

"Any sign of foul play?" McGee asked.

"Nah. House was reasonably kept up, except for the stack of soda cans on his computer desk itself."

"I meant..."

"No, none of that either."

"I found out who reported Mike's disappearance," Dinozzo reported. "Apparently, he was supposed to host a role playing game at his house the next day. When he didn't show, one of the others called his father," Tony said. "I've got a list of names, cross checked it against the phone numbers, and am working on addresses. There's also this charity that he works for. Couldn't get an answer back from them."

"And nothing on the credit card front. No bank movement either. Other than that..." a phone echoed through the office. "I've got a personal call," McGee said, startled. He pulled out a cell and glanced at the number. "My sister," he said apologetically.

"Sarah?" he asked. "Really? I'll do my best." He put down the phone and turned back to Gibbs. "Other than that, we've got nothing." He looked flummoxed for a moment. "My sister's car quit. She's hoping I can come pick her up."

Gibbs let out a breath, he was clearly debating something. "Go. All of you. Looks like we're getting nowhere else tonight."

"Didn't you take the bus, Tim?" Dinozzo asked, grabbing his coat.

"Yeah. I'll have to get home before I can..."

"C'mon, McGreen. I'll drive."

5:45 PM

"I can't afford this," Sarah complained.

"What? Having someone take you to work?" Tim asked.

"No, the actual repairs," she said wryly. "I'm going to need a second job."

Tim put his hand in his pocket, pulling out a business card. "I know this guy's looking for a security guard for an over night shift. It's an emergency for him."

Sarah took it. "Oh. I remember that place. Had the bunny and chicken bandmates, right?" Then she stiffened. "The last one wasn't murdered or something, was he? How'd you find out about this?"

"Missing person," Tim admitted. "Don't know that's where he disappeared from, but it's where he was last seen."

"That's still kind of creepy."

"It's a night watchmen post. Bring a book or some of your writing, it's likely to be the second dullest job in existence."

"After that Potato Chip Picker job, right?"

Tim shuddered.

"It's actually not a bad idea," she admitted. "And if he's desperate, he's probably looking for someone right now."

She took out her phone and dialed.


	2. Night 1: Jumped at the call

_Larry Bryant looking worried, talking into his cell_.

* * *

11:00 PM  
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

As asked, Sarah McGee had come in the back door. She'd met Larry in the hallway, and toured the facility together. Afterwards, they'd arrived back in the security room.

"You're a life saver," Larry told her. "I was all ready to pull a double shift again." He yawned again. "You'll be on from normally 11:00 to 7:00, that's when I come in. If anything happens, wake me. You've got my cell phone number."

Sarah smiled, "Programmed it in already," She pulled her phone out. "Full bars. All good."

"We've got a land line, too." Larry said, pointing. "I see you brought a backpack with you. Reading is fine, just do remember to keep an eye on the place. The safe is time-locked, but there's people these days that would resort to stealing the safe itself. And I'd rather not have any idiotic teens prove their bravery by breaking in here and going after Freddy."

"That likely to be a problem?" Sarah asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Nah. Just likely enough that the boss wants us to keep a night watchman. Oh, right. I need to tell him I've got a new hire. Normally, he'd do the hiring himself, but this was an emergency," Larry said, yawning for a third time.

"Which reminds me, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up two jobs..." Sarah started.

Larry put up his hand. "Trust me, I get it. I'd ask where you work, but I'm exhausted," he gave her a grin. "Can you promise me five days, see how it goes?"

"I think I can make it five days," Sarah said. She unslung her pack, putting it on the desk.

"How'd you find out I needed the help, anyway?" he asked.

"My brother," she replied. "Said that your previous guard was subject of a missing person's report, and you were desperate."

"Oh, one of the NCIS agents? I can't believe that worked." He rubbed his eyes. "God. Hope they find him. Mike was a good kid."

Sarah nodded. "Tim's a good investigator. If anything happened to me, I'd want Team Gibbs on my side."

He wasn't listening, he appeared to be in deep thought for a few seconds. "Uniform," he said, snapping his fingers. He stood. "Be right back." After a few minutes, he returned with a Fazbear Security uniform. "It's going to be big," he apologized. "I only have one or two extras, and it's easier to make them big than small. I mean, nothing's going to happen. But if something does, it makes you look like an actual employee."

Sarah shrugged. "It was short notice, and that sounds fair enough," She stood, and walked over to the restrooms to get changed. They were big, and she ended up rolling up her sleeves. "Maybe I can get them hemmed for tomorrow night," she said upon her return.

"Anyway. Phone's on the back wall, goes straight to an outside line, no need to dial 9 or anything like that. There's the light switch for the guard room itself. I expect you'd leave it on all night. Then there's the door controls. The top button will toggle the lights in the hallways, the bottom one will shut the security door. It's big, it's heavy, and you really shouldn't need it. I don't even have any idea why they're there. This is your security tablet, here's the program for the cameras." He grinned at her. "No installing Candy Crush Saga if you know what good for you. Not that there's wireless here anyway." They cycled through the cameras.

"For crying... neither Mike nor Phil told me the Kitchen camera was out. I'll have to get that fixed," he sighed. "But not tonight. Anything else you need?"

"Think I'm good," Sarah said. "Go! Get some sleep."

"I will. Thanks. Have a good night," he said, and left the station.

She flipped through the cameras, watched him as he grabbed his coat and keys from his office, and headed out of the buildings. She flipped through the cameras, saw the Freddy Fozbear team up on the stage, not moving. All seemed to be right with the place, she grabbed a book from her pack, and set about reading.

For the next hour or so, she'd read for about ten minutes, pause to flip through the cameras, and go back to her book. That was her plan, anyway.

12:00 AM  
Power Level: 100%

Sarah just about fell out of her chair when the phone rang. Had the manager remembered something? She looked around. There was a display on her left she'd not noticed before. It showed a "Power Level" and a single green dot showing usage.

The phone clicked onto speaker mode.

"_Hello, hello? Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night. Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing up my last week now, as a matter of fact. So, I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about. Uh, you'll do fine. So, let's just focus on getting you through your first week. Okay?"_

"What?" Sarah muttered. "Exactly what about this job is supposed to be overwhelming?"

_ "Uh, let's see, first there's an introductory greeting from the company that I'm supposed to read. Uh, it's kind of a legal thing, you know. Um, "Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. A magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life. Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or person. Upon discovering that damage or death has occurred, a missing person report will be filed within 90 days, or as soon property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached, and the carpets have been replaced."_

"That doesn't even make sense. What kind of bad joke are you?" Sarah demanded of the phone.

"_Blah blah blah, now that might sound bad, I know, but there's really nothing to worry about. Uh, the animatronic characters here do get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No. If I were forced to sing those same stupid songs for twenty years and I never got a bath? I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too. So, remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and we need to show them a little respect, right? Okay."_

Sarah sighed, pulling up the camera. Nothing going on stage. She did notice that the power usage went up when she accessed the camera. She put the tablet back down. She'd noticed a spider web up in the corner of the security room, but she let it be. She didn't mind spiders that much, but she hated flies.

"_So, just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit. Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night. Uh...Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long. Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Bite of '97. Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?"_

"Now I know you're making that up."

_ "Uh, now concerning your safety, the only _real _risk to you as a night watchman here, if any, is the fact that these characters, uh, if they happen to see you after hours probably won't recognize you as a person. They'll p-most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on. Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to...forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit. Um, now, that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with crossbeams, wires, and animatronic devices, especially around the facial area. So, you could imagine how having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort...and death. Uh, the only parts of you that would likely see the light of day again would be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask, heh._ "

"D... Definitely making that up, but, wow, that's a disturbing image you've just given me."

_ "Y-Yeah, they don't tell you these things when you sign up. But hey, first day should be a breeze. I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night."_

"Alright, creepy voice, looking forward to it," Sarah said, rolling her eyes as the phone clicked off. She went back to her ten minute routine.

1:20 AM  
Power Level: 92%

The cell phone in her pocket beeped again, and Sarah put down her book to do her job. She flipped through the cameras. Nothing going on in Pirate's Cove. Kitchen was still out of order, and the two animatronics on stage still weren't moving.

She was about to pick her book up again when she blinked and picked the tablet back up. "Two animatronics?" she whispered. And she'd been right. The bear and chicken were still there, but where was the blue rabbit?

"Crap!" she said aloud, flipping through the camera feeds. Surely she'd have heard someone break in, right? The doors? The windows? "Wait... is that him?" It was. The blue rabbit was standing in the dining area, his head moving back and forth like it was some sort of camera.

She stood, stretched, and she was about to get out, to go check on it, when she remembered the words of the phone guy from earlier. But that had to be nonsense, right? She considered. Alternative one: Phone guy was telling the truth, and going out was an invitation to be attacked by them. Alternative two: Phone guy was lying, and the animatronic would be too heavy to put back on the stage by herself. Pascal won, there was no real reason to go out.

Besides, as long as nobody actually broke in, what was the harm of it, right?

1:45  
Power Level: 86%

She'd started checking the cameras more often after she'd discovered Bonnie (the Bunny – she'd found child-art of her in the halls on the camera) had moved from her position. It was starting to hamper the enjoyment of her book.

Which is why she was very distressed when she picked up the pad to find the chick in the dining room instead of the bunny. "So you've decided to go back on stage, right?" she mumbled, tapping the camera.

Apparently not. Only the bear was onstage now. "This would be less disturbing if I actually caught them moving." Where was that wascially wabbit now? Cycle through the cameras, stop on a dark shape. But it was the shape of an animatronic. That had to be Bonnie, "Ah. Gotcha. You're in the maintenance area. Would that be backstage?"

She frowned for a moment. There was clearly an exoskeleton on that table. Wasn't that against the rules the phone guy laid out? Or was being backstage an exception? In any event, Bonnie was paying no attention to it, he was... looking at the camera?

"Alright. That is actually creepy."

She dogeared the book page and pulled out her iPod. This was going to require more focus than she had previously thought.

2:15  
Power level: 77%

She had been studying the cameras pretty efficiently, and there had been no further movement from the bunny.. flip back to the stage. Freddy Fazbear himself, still on stage, still studying his microphone. Flip back to the eating area and... no sign of Chica.

Sarah took a deep breath. She cycled through every camera in the restaurant. Twice. There was no sign of the bird. Horrified, she looked up, pushing the left light button and then the right light button. There still wasn't a single feather of her in sight.. it was a her right? She took a deep steadying breath. She searched through the place again and stopped on the disabled kitchen light.

There was audio of something moving around and... eating? Sarah wrinkled her nose. "I... I better not think about this one too hard."

She set the monitor down, music quietly playing in the office around her. She took a second deep breath. "They're not really after you, Sarah. That stupid phone message went straight to your brain. Take a few minutes off to collect yourself."

3:15  
Power Level: 59%

It finally happened. Sarah had failed to find Bonnie as she cycled through the cameras. She tapped on her llight button, and let out a screech as the rabbit's bright blue, angry looking mug was revealed in the door, staring at her. Panicking, she slammed the door shut. "I volunteered five nights at this job?" she demanded of herself. "Why?"

The light in the hallway still on, throwing Bonnie's silhouette against the door. To stop the power from draining quite so fast, she turned it off again. Why was there a power meter anyway? Didn't this place draw power from the grid?

She had seen Chica, the bird was back surveying the dining room. She still didn't know what that bird could have been eating.

Her hands clutched at the chair. She shut her eyes. This was supposed to be a simple job, but was turning into a real stress test. And that stupid call she got three hours ago wasn't helping. After a few minutes, she flickered the left hand light again. Bonnie was still there.

3:30  
Power Level: 55%

Bonnie had finally left after a good fifteen minutes of tense stand off action. But just as Sarah opened the western door, she checked the right light. Chica had stuck her face in the small window to her right, giving Sarah and up close and personal shot of her teeth. Sarah let loose a second unprofessional screech.

**SLAM** went the eastern door.

Sarah swore under her breath. Toothy bird? "Who the hell gives a bird teeth? That's why they have a beak!"

She gave it a few minutes, then flickered the hall light again. The chicken was gone. She turned it on again to be sure. Then it was time to check the other light. Had Bonnie come back?

No.

She opened up the door, she didn't know how long she had to manage her power. Seven AM was when her shift 'officially' ended, but... she shook her head. She'd make it. These things weren't that bad, and they didn't seem move when she had eyes on them.

She turned off her iPod. If these animatronics had come to play games, then they were dealing with an expert game player. Game on.

5:15  
Power Level: 23%

Once she had begun to deal with the night as a game, it went slower, if a lot calmer. She could hear the shuffling of feet when they approached, which meant flickering the lights to see which one was making a go at her. She'd then double check where they were.

About the only thing that got her was the crash of something stumbling into something metal, sounding like it was knocked over. Sarah had a guess, and flipping over to camera 6 confirmed it. Chica was in the kitchen. Eating. She still didn't want to think what that noise actually was.

This distraction almost lasted long enough for Bonnie to sneak it, and Sarah thought she saw a glimpse of disappointment on Bonnie's otherwise angry face as the door came down in her face. She caught the faintest tinge of some stink, too.

"No cigar, Bonnie," Sarah told the closed door crossly.

At 6:00, the shuffling of feet became rapid. She closed both doors, afraid they'd grown tired of their game, but a check of the monitor told her that, no, they'd gone back on stage. As if they'd never moved at all.

6:45 AM

"Alright, Larry," Sarah demanded as he walked into the office. "What's with those animatronics?"

"Did... I not tell you?" he asked, then he rubbed his eyes. "I didn't, did I? They've got servos in their legs that we have to turn on every night, or the whole thing starts to rust. So they free roam at night."

"And they were trying to get into the office!" Sarah demanded.

"Well, it's part of their internal map. They wander in, say hello, wander out again."

"That's not what the phone message said," Sarah told him coldly.

"What are you talking about? What phone message?"

"Got a call in the middle of the night. '_They'll see you as a metal endoskeleton..._' and try to put you into a costume where you belong."

"That's not from us," Larry said. "I swear. I have no idea where that came from."

"Nothing about the Bite of '97?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"What in God's name are you talking about?" Larry demanded. "What bite of '97?"

"Alright, alright. Maybe it was just someone messing around," Sarah admitted.

"When did the call come in? I'll look into it," Larry said, "I understand this place can be creepy at night. Someone trying to push it along? That sounds like a Scooby Doo mystery," he paused. "Maybe I should investigate Old Man Jenkins."

"About midnight. Oh. One other thing, Chica went into the kitchen, and I swear I heard her eating."

He snickered. "I think that's a bug in the software. There's a skit in their performing rotation, where Chica is late coming to stage. Why? Because she's eating one last slice of Pizza. Bonnie complains she's eating while mic is turned on."

Maybe it was the long stressful night, but Sarah cracked up at that.

"Will you be in tonight?" he asked.

It was tempting to say no. But with the sun up, the place didn't seem so scary. "I will."

"Thank goodness," he said. His cell phone rang. "The boss," he said after a glance.

"Morning, sir. What? No. Actually, we got a new guard," he put the phone down for a moment. "What's your full name, Sarah?"

"McGee. Sarah McGee." There was a loud noise from the phone. "Oh come on, sir. You KNOW that's illegal. It's hard enough to get someone here on short notice, you being Misogynstic isn't actually helping..." he pulled down the phone again.

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I so didn't need to deal with this. Be here by eleven, and I'll see you tomorrow morning. If you get that uniformed hem, I mean uniform hemmed, bring in a receipt, and I'll compensate you."

With a resigned and worried look, Larry went back to talking to the owner.

_(A/N: Bite moved forward 1 decade for story reasons - TZ)_


	3. Day 2: Unraveling Leads

_Tony Dinozzo looking despondently at a piece of paper._

* * *

8:00 AM: 50 hours missing  
NCIS Bullpen

As the boss down the hall, coffee cup in hand, Bishop and Dinozzo were both at their desks, clearing their overnight e-mails and phone messages. "McGee's late," Dinozzo said unnecessarily.

"He's already on record. Had to take his sister between jobs," Gibbs told him, sitting down at his desk. "He'll be in shortly."

"Alright. Was going to go interview some of Mike's friends, see if he had any enemies or if anyone heard from him after work."

"Take Bishop with you," Gibbs said without looking up.

"Wrapping up a few pieces of paperwork, Tony," she said. "Be ready in just a few minutes. Who are we starting with?"

Dinozzo picked up a piece of paper. "Charity that he works for," he scanned the list briefly. "Wheels for Seniors. Helps people who can no longer drive get to the hospital, go grocery shopping, that kind of thing."

"Good Samaritan," Gibbs said.

"He's listed an employee, but still, seems to be generally a nice thing to do. Probably why he needed the night job, though."

The elevator dinged as McGee walked quickly into the bullpen.

Gibbs looked up to verify McGee's presence. "Back you go, you're with Abby for now. She said she needs your help."

McGee put his gear into his drawer and locked it. He glanced briefly at the computer, but decided against checking his messages. They'd keep. Abby didn't always. He turned right around without speaking and headed down to the lab.

There was birthday party music playing as McGee slid open the door to the lab. "MCGEE!" Abby shouted, causing him to step back a moment.

"Y-yes?"

The raven haired forensic scientist turned around. Her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed. She was looking daggers at the special agent. She was wearing a "Let's Eat" bib. "You. Went. To. Freddy. Fazbear's. Without me!"

"That's what this is about?" McGee said, stepping back. "Abby, it was for a case. Their night guard disappeared, apparently off the face of the planet. I didn't even know that's where we were going until we got there."

Abby's eyes remained daggers for a few moments as she decided whether or not to accept this explanation. In the end, she relaxed. "Apology accepted," she told him, and waved him further to where Mike's missing computer sat with a second desktop PC sitting across the table with it.

"So... what did you need help with?"

"OK." Abby put her hands in front of her, perfectly framing the two computers on the table. "Have you heard the term 'Security through Obscurity'?" she asked.

"Of course, it's the idea that people won't try to break into your systems if they don't care where they are."

"And that is about what we have here." Abby said, indicating the computers before her.

"But we know exactly where these computers are," McGee said, frowning.

"Yes. And these computers contain over twenty years of games, junk files, random pictures that I hope are not pornographic, and text files. It appears, instead of actually cleaning his hard drives, he simply bought new ones and copied everything over. This is the computer equivalent of hoarding. If there is anything useful in here, it is well and truly buried."

"So what's the plan?"

"Get a shovel. I've cloned the data onto this other computer."

10:00 AM

"Well, that was uninteresting," Dinozzo complained. "Nice guy, great with all the care recipients, Blah blah blah, nothing helpful to the case."

"So where to next?" Bishop asked. She consulted Dinozzo's list of addresses. "Nicholas Peterson, Right? The guard before Mike."

Nicholas lived in Chevy Chase, another one of the small suburbs that dotted the DC Metro area. The apartment was in a ramshackle area of town, Dinozzo pushed the buzzer. After a few minutes of no response, he pushed the buzzer again.

"Who is it?" came the voice from the speaker.

"NCIS, we'd like to talk with you," Dinozzo said.

"Who the hell is NCIS?"

Dinozzo sighed. "Navy cops. We want to talk to you about Freddy Fazbear's."

The speaker clicked off, and after a few seconds, a buzzer sounded and the lobby door clicked open. The pair of agents climbed up to the second floor, and Bishop politely knocked on the door.

"He already buzzed us in, Bishop," Tony told her.

The door opened a few moments later, revealing an unkempt looking individual with hastily thrown on clothing. His brown hair was clearly uncombed. His grey eyes, however, looked directly at Tony alertly. Bishop shot Tony a withering look.

"Please say you're working on closing that place down," Nick said, waving them in.

There was a moment of silence at this declaration, even as the agents walked into the natty apartment. "What makes you say that?" Bishop finally asked.

"The place is haunted," he said flatly. "Those animatronics, they ain't human."

Tony let out an audible sigh.

"You know what I mean. They're **hunters** man, they come after you." He stared at the disbelieving faces across from him. "It's a six hour shift, and right from the bat the two sidekicks start to wander around. Then the fox charges the office, they want after anything that's living. Why do you think they have..."

"Stop," ordered Dinozzo. "Just... stop. Take a deep breath. Let's sit down, and talk about exactly what you saw when working there." He led him to a chair, while they took seats on a nearby couch.

"I only made it three days before I couldn't take it any more," he said. "It all started with that phone call. One each night, implying previous guards had been stuffed into suits by the animatronics. Then they started wandering the halls. The manager said the were just in free roam mode... but I know better."

"Alright... so what do you think happened to Mike?" Bishop asked, trying to focus the ramblings.

"Who's Mike?" he asked.

"Mike Schmidt," Tony said. "He was the guard after you. He's disappeared."

"Never met him, but if I were you, I'd check the empty suits backstage. One of them probably has a new guest."

"Well, thank you for your time," Dinozzo stood, but Nicholas was faster. He got up and grabbed Tony's shoulders, staring him right in the eyes.

"You don't believe me. I'm telling you. I thought it was just a Pizza job, thought it was a bust. But I _could not handle the stress_. You need to get that place closed down. The quicker the better. **Everyone** will be safer that way. Burn it to the ground. It's the only way to be sure." He released Tony, his hands shaking.

Bishop stood, shocked at Nick's vehemence. "We'll be sure to investigate further. Maybe you should get some more sleep."

"Yeah... yeah. Good idea. Just hope I don't hear that Fox in my dreams any more. Ugh."

Tony closed the door behind him.

"Was that the weirdest interview you've ever had?" Bishop asked.

Tony thought on the way down. "I think so. Definitely in the top three."

"Where next? The roleplaying person who reported him missing?"

12:30 PM

"Alright, so that's all the text and open office document files. Roleplaying characters, poorly written fan-fiction, and what looked like the beginnings of a fantasy novel," Tim said, sighing.

"I think I've seen some of those role-playing characters in graphical format. Looking at some of them makes me see why he might be attracted to a place like Freddy's."

McGee raised his eyebrows. "No," he said, changing his mind, "I'd rather not know,"

Abby snickered. "Aw, McGee. You alright?"

"I need another break," McGee admitted, he stood and stretched. "Do we know there's anything there?"

"People don't just disappear, McGee!" Abby insisted, "Not in Freddy Fazbear's!"

"Alright, alright. I'm just going to get lunch, I'll be right back."

Abby raced into her office, pulling a dollar from her handbag. "Caf-pow!" she said, placing her order and her money into Tim's hand. He headed out of the lab and back up to the break room.

"Need to find something so I can get Gibbs down here," she mumbled, delving back into the depths of Mike's computers.

After a few more minutes, her phone rang. "Gibbs," she said crossly, "If I had something, I'd have sent for you telepathically. Oh. McGee's getting lunch. What? Someone broke into Mike's apartment? Oh. Fine. You can have McGee."

She turned and looked at the computer's crossly. "I'm not letting you get Freddy's in trouble."

2:00 PM

They were met at the door by a Rockville uniformed policeman. After Gibbs introduced himself and Special Agent McGee, the Policeman told them as much as he knew about the break in. "One of Mike's neighbors, a Sarah Macintosh, noticed the door slightly ajar when she came home this afternoon."

Gibbs nodded in recognition of the name. "Met her when we came to pick up his computer," Gibbs told McGee. "The cameras on the entrances?" he asked.

"We're getting two sets of copies now, we'll forward one set to the Navy Yard when we have them."

Gibbs nodded again, this time in appreciation. After checking the door handle for prints (there were far too many to be useful), they let themselves into the apartment. There were signs of forced entry around the main handle, but not around the bolt. McGee snapped a photo, "Surprised no one heard that," then he carefully pushed the door open.

It was now a total wreck with overturned chairs, a flipped ottoman, and clothes strewn everywhere.

"Wow," said McGee. "Was it like that when you and Bishop were here?" he asked. Gibbs shook his head. "Time to figure out what our thief was looking for, then. He clearly didn't find it quickly."

They progressed through the crime scene, McGee taking pictures of some of the more obvious signs of damage, such as the mattress completely taken off the bed, and the completely torn apart desk with the soda cans scattered and crumpled on the ground.

McGee studied them. "Didn't Bishop say these were stacked on the table?" he asked Gibbs. Receiving no reply, which he took for a yes, he took an evidence bag out of pocket. With gloved hands touching only the top and bottom, he picked one of them and set it carefully in the bag.

Gibbs entered the room, cocking a curious eyebrow at his investigator.

"The rest of these are crushed on one of the ends, which would indicate being stomped on. This one though, crushed in the middle, and the ends are intact. I think our perp crushed this one with his... or her... hand and threw it on the floor."

"That's good work, McGee," Gibbs said.

"Thank you, boss." McGee told him, and they continued the investigation.

4:30 PM

The bullpen was full again. "That was Vance," Gibbs reported. "He wanted the same to know the same thing as I do: What have we got?"

"We lucked out! We got two different sets off of the soda can," McGee told him. "One of them is most likely Mike's, and the other one is almost certainly are perp's. By rule 39, he had something to do with Mike's disappearance."

"No enemies, great job with customers, hosts a role-playing group, Legend of the Five rings," Dinozzo began.

"Based on Japanese mythology," McGee rattled off. "Samurai culture."

"Thank you, McDice," Dinozzo told him. "And one rather paranoid former employee, insisted the animatronics were after him. Said we should check the spare suits to make sure he wasn't stuffed into one. Couldn't wait to see the place closed down."

"Possibly suspicious, but he seemed honestly scared," Bishop. "I don't think we could pay him enough to go back to that place."

"I could see why working in a place with animatronics every night can start creeping you out. They're so... not quite lifelike," Dinozzo added, "But, this guy was on a hair trigger, boss."

The ding of a mail message came to all four computers simultaneously.

McGee got to it first, raising an eyebrow. "Homework?" he asked dubiously. "Abby has homework for us?"

Gibbs stood and headed to the elevator. "Let's go find out."

"Gibbs! Gibbsgibbsgibbbsgibbs," Abby said as he led the group into the lab.

"Whacha got, Abbs? A hit on our finger prints?"

"Sadly, no," she glanced at the screen, as if expecting Gibbs's query to spontaneously cause AFIS to kick one out. "But I did find our mystery break-in artist," she said, showing him the video feed Rockville had sent over. A man, dressed in a dark purple hoodie, hood raised, was helping a woman into Mike's apartment building. He kept his face away from the camera, though. "None of my tricks came through. He leaves about 15 minutes later," she said, unceremoniously.

"That's not why you called us down here," Gibbs told her knowingly.

"No. That was dinner, and now you may have desert. I have found the most awesome thing ever, hiding away in this computer. We, I mean, McGee and I, searched through common text extensions, TXT, DOC, ODT, the usual. But I started to think..."

Gibbs began to roll his eyes. "The good part."

"Spoilsport. Anyway, I did a wild card search on the names of the animatronics. And, hidden away was a BonnieBu dot nny. Opening the file up in a text editor gave me this!" She pressed a single key, and a jumble of text appeared on the screen.

* * *

_ Fcrt dje: Ude mnngcvr nod $udvr idefw#aws lal hvre bty#hd ude fobut dvve %2uj!ht a %^pkpim. Uvha2y nod p!s tvsw ptc^fl, vht nd%'t p$udvr udim. $lgknnkclaty, Lzapy nkw^%'t fhrxce udim. (Rhtb's ude lnabvvjpge fxfsajn gs?)_

_Fcrt fyo: 2t wss udwwe smie nfemtc^dfkqs uhtt svve fn ude l^$ivr hraza vjbp, pedlflg $o ude j2xe fpklhj%t, a ivve uwvae dyks awxvr ude yfshvr. (%2%jwawws? Rjo wss j2axjn?)_

_Fcrt uwvae: Cam^slflg $o jse$pplvr vlb^cbs, ude bfdkge of#t wtrfh a r^al fyo saoys fwxvr ude lspalerrnpgws svve vlb^cxhd. Ude rhjpe j2xe fPklhj%t $baeohd lkbepe rfcudvr._

_Ude e!a!flg clrs m!^id hvre pbwt fbl^ve rhtxrrvr hpaljjhd, vht I nd%'t upfhk #o. Ud#y hf#jhd ude elcge 2$!lhe ny2n fwxvhwrsd. ud#y svvj%'t fn ude Nfemt^dfiks... vht %2uh ude wyy ud#y crt, I upfhk ud#y hdyw rdvve._

_I $gbt %!ph sycflg udim llo%'t bapl dcoe g3klhe._

_Nf wf've vedlflg up!s, I gfve jble w!f've %2uh ude bfdkge, ss Uvha2k's wai%s $o hvre a bczkrt plhe ude pn2y bfdki!y... nod I nd%'t cfgbt udim d$t $o mcie e%he uy mcd2hxvr._

_jblbr^aty ude mnhe y!^id fe $ao hrsd l^r udim._

* * *

"What's that?" asked Tony.

"It's a code," said Abby, smugly, "And with it being time stamped three days ago, it's going to break our case once we break it." She grabbed a small stack of paper, and handed out printed copies of the code to everyone. I've sent copies to Ducky and Palmer too. Yes, I've e-mailed it to everyone as well," she told Bishop, forestalling her question.

"Let's hope it's actually a cypher," Bishop said, "Codes are much harder... if not impossible to break."

"You are inclusive that way," Gibbs said, handing over fresh Caf-Pow! "Thanks, Abbs." He turned to the rest of the team, "You have the rest of the day to get started on your homework," he told the group.

"Boss?" asked Bishop. "Can I have permission to share this with my husband?"

Gibbs looked at her. "Yes," he pointed at McGee, "and Delilah can help too, if she wants. Other than that, the normal rules apply."

Tony looked depressingly at the incomprehensible lettering in front of him and sighed.

[It's very hard, but Bishop's right: It is a procedurally generated Cypher, and can be solved by hand. They'll have the advantage of computers, of course... but you might be able to solve it on your own. If you try, the '2's in the code should be changed into the AT symbol, as FF.N has banned it as spam prevention. Good luck! - TZ]


	4. Night 2: and Frayed Nerves

_ Tim McGee driving a car, looking horrified._

* * *

11:00 PM

Sarah McGee arrived at Freddy Fazbear's much happier than when she left it. For one, she'd had a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Two, she'd gotten a call from her mechanic, her alternator had failed. It was an easily fixable problem, but they needed the part, and it was going to be a few days. The better news was that it was going to be relatively cheap to fix, and this limited time job was going to cover that. Three, and most immediately important, she had gotten the security shirt hemmed.

The janitor was just finishing cleaning and ready to go home. He looked up at Sarah and nodded, "Larry left a message for you in the office."

"Thanks," she said, smiling. She sat down in her chair, picked up the tablet and verified all the cameras – except the kitchen, which was still out. Setting the tablet back on the desk, she picked up the note.

"Glad it your back for another night," she read aloud, "Otherwise the janitor would have had to stay the night. Our finances are tight enough without unexpected overtime. Like you asked, I followed up with our provider, but there's no record of any incoming calls last night. Finally, if you did get that uniform fixed, tape the receipt to my door and I'll personally reimburse you tomorrow night. - Larry."

Wait. What? "No incoming calls?" she repeated. "But..." All right, it was someone not just trolling her, but smart enough to cover their tracks. Maybe her brother would be willing to go digging for her.

She stood, and decided to take a walk around the restaurant. With the main light still on, it was a cheery enough place. The three animatronics were still up on the show stage, their half lidded eyes looking out to the dining room, as if watching the janitor work.

"Everything all right? He asked her.

"Yeah, just woke up. Still need to stretch," she told him.

"I'm supposed to turn off the main lights when I leave," he said. He glanced at his watch, "and I better be leaving soon." He laughed, a bit nervously, "I only get paid so much. Budgets, they say." His eyes twitched towards the animatronics. "They should get them to clean this place."

Sarah looked over there herself. "I'm told they have to move around a bit to keep them from rusting, but..." she unintentionally lowered her voice. "you ever been here when they do?" she asked.

"No way, no how. Those things are creepy enough on stage," he said laughing. A bit forced laughing, in Sarah's opinion.

She looked back at them. Their eyelids were even more lowered now, and looking directly at her. She gave an involuntary shudder. "Yeah, they are." She better get her walking in before they went into all range mode.

She went into the kitchen, the only room she'd not gotten a good look at. It was an ordinary industrial kitchen, albeit one with multiple small pizza ovens all down the outside wall. A metal counter stood in the middle, and a number of trolleys, probably for bringing multiple pizzas to parties, stood beside it. This is what probably what Chica crashed into when she first came in. It was spic and span. Freddy's may have had a questionable reputation, as much as any restaurant did, but it was clear the janitor took pride in his job.

"I'm ready to head out," came the call from the back door. Sarah departed, jogging towards the office. She grabbed her tablet, flipping over to the camera on the door.

He was giving the camera a broad, silly smile. When the camera began to move, he nodded, pulled an electrical switch, and headed out of the building. She heard the slam of the doors as he left.

12:00  
Power Remaining: 100%

Just a few seconds after her phone clicked over to midnight, there was a ringing on the landline. Sarah pressed the speaker. "Hello?" she asked. "Who is this?"

"_Uhh, Hello? Hello? Uh, well, if you're hearing this and you made it to day two, uh, congrats! I-I won't talk quite as long this time since Freddy and his friends tend to become more active as the week progresses. Uhh, it might be a good idea to peek at those cameras while I talk just to make sure everyone's in their proper place. You know..." _He paused.

"Oh come on. Who is this?" she asked of the phone, before her nerves got the better of her. She picked up the tablet and checked the show stage. At least for the moment, everyone was accounted for.

_ "Uh... Interestingly enough, Freddy himself doesn't come off stage very often. I heard he becomes a lot more active in the dark though, so, hey, I guess that's one more reason not to run out of power, right?"_

Sarah slapped her forehead. THAT was what she forgot to ask Larry. How was it possible to run out of power? Weren't they connected to the grid? That didn't make any sense!

_ "I-I also want to emphasize the importance of using your door lights. There are blind spots in your camera views, and those blind spots happen to be right outside of your doors. So if-if you can't find something, or someone, on your cameras, be sure to check the door lights. Uh, you might only have a few seconds to react... Uh, not that you would be in any danger, of course. I'm not implying that."_

"Except that's exactly what you're implying, mysterious phone guy," she muttered, staring daggers at the phone.

_ "Also, check on the curtain in Pirate Cove from time to time. The character in there seems unique in that he becomes more active if the cameras remain off for long periods of time. I guess he doesn't like being watched. I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure you have everything under control! Uh, talk to you soon,"_

"What character in Pirates cove?" she asked in surprise. She pulled up the cameras again. All she could see were closed curtains and a sign saying out of order. She flipped back to the main stage. Everyone still accounted for. "Alright. Just got to check on you now and again. If I keep an eye on you, you won't move, right? World's worst game of Red Light, Green Light?"

1:15

Power Level: 78%

She'd had to back off on checking the cameras. She was a few percentage points down on power from where she ought to be. She'd allotted herself 16% an hour, enough to get herself through the night with a little bit to spare, and she was beneath that.

It was annoying, if not surprising, to find Bonnie searching the dining hall again. Chica and Freddy were still on stage and... Sarah just about jumped out of her chair... they were staring directly at the camera.

"That's... that's not right," Sarah said. She put down her tablet, again taking deep breaths to calm her nerves.

"They're not after you, Sarah," she said, repeatedly. She stood, pacing around the lit office, trying to burn off the nervous energy. It took a few minutes before her heart rate finally started returning to normal. She sat down and turned on her iPod. When the music ran out, she'd check again.

1:45 AM  
Power Level: 71%

Chica was missing. She wasn't on stage, she wasn't in the dining hall, she wasn't in the backstage. Bonnie **was **backstage, acting for all the world like he was taking a selfie, reaching up to the camera. If it hadn't surprised her so much, she'd have found it hilarious. She flipped past the kitchen, as there were no sounds coming from there.

She put down the tablet, checking the lights outside the office, shivering. No Chica outside her window. No Chica in the left hallway. Alright, she picked up the tablet and started over. She hit the marker for pirates cove and was shocked again. The stage was wide open and there was nothing visible. The curtains were rustling like something had gone by them.

Fearing for her life, Sarah dropped the tablet to the floor and raced to the left door, slamming it down, then did the same to the right door. She then searched through the hallways, convinced there was something racing the camera's views down towards the office.

It reached the door first, slamming against them with a knock loud enough to wake the dead. The sound alone nearly knocked her out of her chair, her mouth was suddenly dry and uncomfortable. She looked back at the tablet, and saw the image of a red fox like humanoid jogging back up the hallway, back into pirates cove.

She reopened the doors slowly, some part of her brain telling her she had to conserve power. She was fully aware she'd dodged a bullet train.

She found Chica a few moments later, 'eating' in the kitchen. Missing her the first time had saved her life.

She'd have to thank the chicken later. First, she searched her bag for her water. She'd have gone for a Caf-Pow, but a diuretic right now seemed like an incredibly bad idea.

3:30 AM  
Power level: 40%

She was still under where she wanted to be, but at least she was trending closer to an average that would leave her with power at the magical time of six AM. About half an hour ago, Bonnie had been outside her left door long enough for Sarah to call him a camper. He was apparently offended by this and moved along soon after. For the moment, though, the tablet showed her reasonably safe. Freddy still hasn't moved from the stage, the Fox hadn't shown herself again from Pirates cove, Bonnie was backstage, and Chica was searching for morsels in the dining hall.

She idly flipped through the rest of the cameras. She stopped in the west hall. Had that newspaper article been there before? With the first few words, she knew that there was no way on God's Green Earth that any employee still working at Fazbear's would have left that article out.

"**Four children now reported missing. Suspect arrested."**

_Four children are now linked to the incident at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where a man believed to have dressed as one of the cartoon mascots lured them into a back room._

_ The police are reported to have a security guard, Jeremy Fitzgerald, in custody, no one has been yet formally charged. The bodies have also not yet been found._

_ Freddy Fazbears has been fighting an uphill battle ever since to convince families to return to the Pizzeria._

_ "It's a tragedy," said the owner, Dorothy Richardson._

Above the headline was the Washington Post staff byline.

Sarah stared at a moment, then grabbed paper from her backpack and a pen from the desk and wrote furiously, afraid that if she gave them time, the animatronics would find their way into the office... and if she changed the camera, whoever hung that clipping up for her to see would take it away again.

After copying the article completely, she checked the cameras again. Chica and Bonnie hadn't moved, but the curtains had shifted slightly in Pirates cove, and the Fox was peeking out.

Sarah put down the tablet. She considered running for that article, but decided against it. If it had been recent, she'd have remembered it, she kept a reasonably close eye on local news. If it had actually run in the Post, then once she was done here, she could... and should look it up online. Someone... or something... had intentionally left that out for her to see.

4:45 AM  
21% Power remaining

Sarah gave a sigh of relief. She'd gotten back above the blackout line at last. As long as none of the others returned for a long engagement, she was petty sure she'd make it through the night with her lights on. No sense in seeing if Freddy really did wake up if the office went dark.

However, with the Fox doing his best impression of a wax piece, and Bonnie and Chica amusing themselves in the Dining Hall and Kitchen respectively (maybe Chica was going to make a Pizza for Bonnie), Sarah took a moment to take a look around a little deeper. If there had been killings here, and someone... or, and Sarah shuddered at this thought, something... had tried to bring it to her attention, maybe there was something else worth spotting.

The most likely place was the maintenance area. The first call she got from mysterious benefactor said that the animatronics victims would be stuffed into the suits. Had this happened to Mike? If so, where had he ended up?

She studied it briefly. All the heads had been turned towards the camera. Creepy, but less creepy than other things she'd seen tonight. Besides, she bet Bonnie had done that. There was a metal endoskeleton on the table, and a box of what looked like spare parts. What she didn't see was any 'suits' that she could be stuffed into... they must have been under the camera.

She flipped back to pirates cove to make sure the Fox was sitting tight. He was.

6:00  
3% Power remaining.

She'd set her iPod to play the Westminster Chimes when it hit six in the morning. It had felt an appropriate thing to do. A few seconds later, she heard the shuffle of moving animatronics. It had gotten tense for a few minutes, Chica and Bonnie had each made another attempt at her, but the doors... and her power... had held.

Once she was able to verify that they were back on stage, and that the Fox had disappeared behind his curtains again, Sarah stood and had a well deserved stretch. Then she wandered out of the office, reveling in her regained freedom. She ignored the small voice in the back of her mind telling her to flee and never come back. She headed up at the hall, pausing briefly at the tacked note with the rules on it. The newspaper clipping was gone, as she had expected.

She walked through the dining hall, pushing the door into the maintenance room, idly wondering why it wasn't locked.

Once inside, she turned to the wall the camera was on. As she expected, there were more shelves with spare Fazbear and Company suits. She walked over and looked in one. As advertised, there was a metal frame, as well as wires and nodes for electronics to hook into. If one were to attempt to put it on... or get forced into it... That would be messy.

There was also a metal endoskeleton on the worktable, she examined for a minute or two, but since she didn't know what she was looking for, didn't really find anything. She looked around for a few minutes more, her eyes drawn to the box of spare parts. It was full of miscellaneous electronic pieces, large chunks of wire mesh, the kind of things she'd seen in the suit a few minutes ago.

No sign of any blood, or anything to show that Mike had actually been here.

She walked back out to the dining room, looking to the main stage. The three animatronics had locked gazes onto her, their narrowed eyes giving them the impression that they were glaring at her.

"If you hadn't gone missing, Chica," she told them, almost giddy, fully aware of the dangers of taunting Cthulhu. "I might not have realized the Fox was missing until it was too late."

They simply stared at her.

"Thought you'd like to know," she said, shrugging, she turned and headed back to the office. She slumped back in the chair as the endorphin rush she had from surviving began to fade. Now all she had to do was wait for Larry to come in and for her to quit. She wasn't sure she'd make it through a third night here.

In the meantime, she pulled out the smart phone to investigate what she'd discovered overnight. There was nothing. Nothing on the web, nothing from Google, she was even desperate enough to try Bing. The Washington Post's online archive were content locked, and she wasn't a subscriber.

Larry didn't come in, as seven AM ticked around, the morning guard Phil did. "Your brother's here," he told her.

"Needed to talk to the boss," she replied. "Where is he?"

"Taking his daughter to the doctor," Phil told her. "He called me about forty five minutes ago. Woke up in the night vomiting. Asked me to apologize to you for that." He looked at her face, "I'm sorry! What can I tell you?"

"Nothing. I'll call him after lunch," she said, grimly packing up her things and heading out to catch her ride.

7:15 AM

"You don't look happy," Tim observed sagely as his sister slammed the car door shut.

"I have been terrified over the last two nights. Convinced it was all in my head yesterday, and... no. It's real." She gave a full summary to her brother, starting with the phone calls, continuing with the crazed robots hunting her, and ending with the clipping that had appeared. "It was either a lure to get me out of the office, or something is very, very, wrong with Freddy's."

"Calm down, Sarah," Tim said gently. "I'm sure there's a rational explanation." He pulled out his smart phone, scanned through the numbers, and punched one up. Then he started the car.

The voice came through the car's speakers. "Washington Post Archives, Lisa speaking."

"Good morning, Lisa. This is Special Agent Timothy McGee of NCIS, how are you this morning?"

"Above average, Agent, how can I help NCIS this morning?"

"We're doing some research on an old case, and are looking for old information in the Post."

"I can help you with that," the woman's voice said brightly. "Any idea of the year?" she asked.

"About 1997," Sarah said.

There was a pause, then the voice asked less bubbly, "What event?"

"Murders or disappearances regarding Freddy Fazbear's Pizza," Tim responded.

"Oh," she said, sounding surprised. "Guess I don't have to go to the microfiche after all. Someone just asked me for that same thing last week. We've a few articles on that. Want them e-mailed or faxed?" she asked politely.

"Wait," Tim said, "Go back. You said someone asked about these last week? Any idea on who?"

"Uhm. Hold on, I can check..." she paused. "Am I allowed to tell him? Name of a previous research request?" she asked, not even muffling the phone.

"We're trying to find a missing person, and it might be germane to the case. Time is of the essence," Tim told her.

"Well, when you put it that way, sure. His name was Mike Schmidt."

Tim stared ahead in shock and horror.


	5. Day 3: Cracked

Tim, clutching a cell phone, his pale face looking at the rest of the team.

* * *

8:00 AM, 74 hours missing.

Abby was sitting in Bishop's chair as Tony jogged off the elevator, just on the right side of the start time. This didn't create a conflict, as Bishop was sitting on the floor. The various pieces of paper surrounding her had once again given Tony the impression a minor tornado had struck a briefcase.

"So It's not a Caesar shift. It's most likely not a Vigenère based code... though I suppose it could be," said Abby.

"Not with those symbols," Bishop agreed. "With the way the words repeat, it's still most likely some kind of cypher."

Abby looked up and noted Tony's arrival. "You get anywhere with your homework, Tony?"

"Homework, about that..." he put his gear away, locking the desk drawer, then pulled out the incomprehensible mess of symbols. He sat down, then his eyes glazed over slightly as he studied.

"You didn't take a single look a it, did you?" Abby accused him. "Someone's missing, Freddy Fazbear's is being blamed, and you didn't even lift a finger!"

"I'm pretty sure that the 'ude' is "the"," he started. "Also, 'nod' is probably 'and', 'fcrt' is fact, which makes 'dje', 'fyo', and 'uwvae' 'one', 'two', and 'three' respectively.

"How did you work that out?" Bishop asked.

"Word positioning. Also, while some of the symbols, specifically the ones in the number row, appear as part of cypher; periods, commas, and such don't seem to, so I think the colons are genuine. Same with the parenthesis. Matching sets," he finished.

"That's assuming a one to one transfer," said Abby, sounding dubious.

"Yep," Dinozzo admitted, "But that's the best I have to go on."

"Where's McGee?" Abby asked. "It's not like him to be late."

"Sister has had car problems the last few days," Gibbs said, rounding the corner, coffee in hand. "He'll be here shortly."

A few minutes later, the ding of the elevator heralded the arrival of...

"McGee!" Abby exclaimed, then added in surprise, "and McGee?"

Gibbs looked up at Sarah briefly, then shifted his gaze to Timothy, his eyebrow was raised and head was tilted in the "Answers had best be forthcoming," look.

"Go ahead," Tim said. "Tell him exactly what you told me."

For the second time in two hours, Sarah told her story. When Dinozzo began to scoff at the idea that the animatronics were actively aggressive, Tim gave him a glare practiced from long hours of watching Gibbs.

When she finished, Tim added, "The killings... disappearances... are real, at least. I should have full copies of the articles e-mailed to me by now. Which is how I know Mike Schmidt knew about this too." He headed to his desk to put his gear away, then picked up the phone. "Going to call Rockville PD and ask for any copies of their old cases," He grinned slightly. "It's all connected."

Abby narrowed her eyes. "How long have you been waiting to use that?" she asked accusingly.

Tim was already on the phone.

"Miss McGee?" Bishop asked from her corner of the floor. "Why do you think the animatronics were after you?"

Abby snorted. "Freddy Fazbear wouldn't hurt anyone," she said defiantly. "I'll prove it."

"Maybe he wouldn't. He's never left the stage," Sarah said, attempting to be conciliatory, "But that fox," she shuddered. "Those things can move."

"But none of them actually got into the office, did they?" Dinozzo pointed out. "How do you know what they were trying to do? I mean, you were told they were just wandering, right?"

Sarah's look at Dinozzo would be most kindly described as chilly. "You haven't seen these things just stare at the camera. They know you're watching, and they don't approve at all."

Bishop thought back, "Did that other guard we interviewed..." she frowned. "Nicholas, he did. He said he got those phone calls too," she frowned. "Going to get those phone records pulled, see who could have called you. What time did you say you got that call?" Bishop asked Sarah.

"Please, I asked the manager, but he insists nobody called," Sarah responded. "Midnight," she added belatedly.

"Thank you officer, see you soon," Tim said, putting the phone down. Then he handed his keys to his sister. "You told me you were going to take the day off from your day job. Go get some sleep,"

Sarah nodded thankfully, "Thanks Tim," she replied. Turning to Gibbs she added, "If there's anything else I can tell you, Tim knows how to reach me." Gibbs nodded in acknowledgment, and she headed to the elevator.

Once his sister had cleared the bullpen, Tim cleared his throat, and shifted his screen over to the monitor. For the moment, all eyes were on him. "This is Jeremy Fitzgerald," he said, looking up at the driver's license. "Previous night guard at Freddy Fazbear's Family Restaurant, working there at the time of the children murders. While not actually on guard duty when the killings happened, he was considered a person of interest, as he was there, helping to work a children's party."

"Then, that Sunday, while covering for the day shift, one of the animatronics outright attacked him."

Abby's eyes had grown to saucers. "Which one?" she asked desperately.

"The officer I talked to wasn't sure. He said something about remembering it was Foxy, but not to put money on it."

"Why would any of them attack a security guard?" Tony demanded.

"Why build them with **teeth**?" Bishop asked.

"Apparently, they were programmed with facial recognition," Tim replied. "In 1997. Somehow. Whoever programmed these things must have been some kind of genius. The official story is that the recognition was faulty somehow. Teeth... I can't help you with." He looked at his screen for a moment, "Anyway, he suffered brain damage from that, but survived. He was never officially cleared, but the police couldn't actually tie him to the disappearances, so no charges were ever filed."

"Where's he now?" Gibbs asked.

"An assisted living center in Rockville," McGee said. "The officer I spoke with is going to bring the cold case file here," he looked over at Gibbs. "Let's take a look at it before we go talk to him."

Gibbs nodded.

There was a few minutes pause as McGee and Dinozzo looked over their desk, at the notes and memos that had piled up the last few days absorbed their attention.

"Did you make any progress with the code?" Abby asked suddenly. She went over Tony's theoretical deductions.

"I came to the same conclusions he did about the punctuation," he said. "The words are a good guess. The carat's there, but not the ampersand, so thirty two potential characters. Any significance in your experience, Bishop?"

"Two to the fifth," Abby put in, automatically.

"I can't say it does, Tim," Bishop replied.

9:30 AM

"Alright," Tim said, shoving the folder away. "There's really not much more to go on. They never found the missing kids. There was almost two civil lawsuits, one for Jeremy, one for the kids. Both were quietly settled out of court. The restaurant closed for good soon afterward." He moved back to his computer, "It's only reopened a few months ago." He frowned. "In the exact same location, no less." He glanced back at the folder. "Looks like part of it got turned into a laundromat." He tapped the left side of the paper.

Gibbs looked up from his desk. "Who reopened it?" he asked.

"Not sure, boss," McGee said, flipping through his notes.

"Work that for me. Dinozzo, you're with me. We're going to pay a visit to Mr. Fitzgerald." Gibbs caught McGee's slightly disappointed look. He gave a meaningful glance towards Abby, and headed to the elevator.

10:15 AM

The 'assisted living center' was in a more rural area of Rockville. The lawn outside was manicured and well kept. One older gentleman in a wheelchair was enjoying the spring sun, talking to someone, possibly a grandson.

Dinozzo and Gibbs entered into the building. A reception desk sat on the left, where a small lounge area took up the right hand spots. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air. The receptionist, a dark haired, middle aged woman, looked up at them. "Can I help you?" she asked politely.

Tony said introduced himself and Gibbs. "NCIS," he said, producing his badge.

"Ah. Here to see Jeremy Fitzgerald?" she asked.

"We are," Gibbs said. "Lucky guess?" he asked.

She shook her head. "We get private detectives every so often, trying to resolve the Fazbear incident," she pointed at a log on the desk. "Sign in please?" She picked up her phone and pushed an intercom button, paging one of the nurses to his room. "According to the family, you will have the right to ask anything you want, as long as one of our nurses are present and we record the entire conversation. Is that reasonable?"

"Yep, it'll be fine," Gibbs told her.

"Room 206," she said, pointing at an elevator on the wall, between two other hallways. "I've met him a few times, he's always unfailingly polite, when he's not having an episode."

The room was set up like a single occupant hospital room, though bigger, and more personally decorated. There was a nice looking flat screen sitting on top of a chest of drawers. A nurse sat in one corner with a digital recording device, about the size of a smartphone. Jeremy sat upright on his bed, looking alert.

"How can I help you sirs?" Jeremy asked. His voice wavered slightly.

"I'm very special agent Tony Dinozzo," he said, "And this is my boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs."

"Any relation to Joe Gibbs?" Jeremy asked excitedly.

Tony looked over at him speculatively. "You know, I'm surprised nobody's ever asked you that before."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes at Dinozzo, just for a moment. "No, I'm not," he segued towards business. "We're investigating the disappearance of Mike Schmidt, a night guard at Freddy Fazbear's pizza."

At the name of Fazbear's, Jeremy's smile vanished. He scooted back from Gibbs, his hands grabbing at his shoulders. "No, no... I didn't do anything, I swear."

"Jeremy?" Dinozzo asked. "You were here. We checked, we know you didn't do anything to Mike."

Jeremy looked between the two agents at phantoms only he could see. "I didn't hurt anyone, why are you after me? I swear, I didn't hurt anyone..."

"That's why he has to be here," the nurse said. "He goes into these flashbacks, sometimes for hours at a time, where he's convinced that there's something hunting him. He seems to think they're looking for revenge for the k..." she caught herself... "for the incident."

"Who's looking for revenge?" asked Gibbs.

"The animatronics," The nurse explained. "One of them bit him, and he's convinced it's because he didn't stop the killings."

"Any idea which one?" asked a skeptical Dinozzo.

"He's inconsistent, sometimes he claims it was Freddy, sometimes Foxy, sometimes it was something he just calls 'The Mangle'."

"Hey. Hey, Jeremy. Where are you?" asked Gibbs.

"The party room, sir," he responded dully. "I was asked to come in for the day, in uniform, and keep close to the animatronics. But the assistant manager said they'd been acting weird since... right. Not in front of the guests."

"And do they look like they're acting weird to you?" Gibbs continued.

"You know what I think of them, boss. They... they seem to be really protective of the kids, and they don't like the fact I'm between them and the kids. They don't like me, either." Jeremy continued to clutch his arms near the shoulders, trying to make himself as small as possible. "Especially at night."

"What's so special about night?" Gibbs asked.

"They creep in to the office at night. Well, Freddy just walks in openly, but Chica.. Bonnie... they try to sneak in. Then there's that creepy balloon boy and the Mangle," Jeremy gave a snort, looking up at Gibbs with unfocused eyes. "I'm telling you, they move. They all do, even the old ones, boss. You said they were retrofitting them with the facial recognition program before they decided to use them for parts." He paused, listening to an unheard complaint. "I don't CARE that they don't have any power. They've shown up in the office."

"Alright, Boss, this actually has gotten me creeped out," Dinozzo said.

Jeremy fell silent, his eyes locked to the door.

"Hello? Hello," Gibbs said, "It's me. Leroy..."

It was like a bomb had gone off, Jeremy dived into blankets of the bed, burying himself under the covers. "No, nonononono, I'm not here. Nobody here. Go away, Freddy." The whimper at the end was almost pitiful.

The two agents simply stared. Even the nurse looked shocked.

Dinozo tried to remember what Sarah had told him. "It's alright, Jeremy. It's six in the morning. They're all back on stage."

Jeremy's breath caught for a second, then resumed a much more normal pace. He peeked up above the covers, scanning left and right. "But... wait. This... this... isn't the office. Where... where am I?"

The nurse stood. This part apparently happened a bit often. "You're safe, Jeremy. You just had a flashback. You're at a nursing home, and you're safe. May I take your hand?"

Jeremy cautiously unburied himself, putting out his hand out, and the nurse took it.

He looked around cautiously. "You were... you were... Joe Gibbs. No. Agent Gibbs, from the Police."

"Close enough," Leroy said, smiling. "At your old job, do you remember who you were covering for, on days?"

"No... I don't. I never met the guy. And the Phone Guy... I mean, the assistant manager never said his name."

"Who was the assistant manager?" Gibbs asked.

"I don't remember. I only met him once. He'd call me at the start of my shift, pass along words of wisdom, tell me what was going on. The only thing I remember from the incident is that he said something about there being an extra suit, and someone used it. I have no idea what that meant. I never saw any extra suits, especially that people could 'use'. They were all animatronics."

"Do you think whoever caused the incident was a coworker?"

Jeremy put his hands out, palms up in a shrug. "Probably? If there was a mystery suit, and someone knew to look for it and use it, that makes it sound like someone from the pizza place."

They talked for a little bit longer, but they didn't learn anything else new. The nurse joined them as they walked out. "I've seen that first one before," she explained. "If it hadn't been hijacked by the second flashback, it ends in a scream when he gets bitten. He goes catatonic for a bit after that," she shook her head. "It's too bad. When he's in the present, he's a real nice guy."

Gibbs nodded.

11:30 AM

"Hey guys. Making progress?"

"Hey Jimmy," McGee said, as Ducky's autopsy assistant wandered into the bullpen. His assignment from Gibbs complete, they were working once again fully on the code. "Not a lot of it," he said, summarizing what they had guessed.

"Hm," he stared at the piece of paper. "That's... that's odd."

"What's odd?" Bishop asked.

"Well, if your deductions are right, then every single word you've deduced ends in the same letter as it does in the code. 'And' has a d at the end, 'The' has an e at the end, 'Fact' has a 't' at the end. So forth and so on. Which is, by the way, why I think this twelve letter word here and here is 'Animatronics', because I can't think of a commonly used twelve letter word."

"Fits," said Bishop, still trying to make progress.

Abby had begun to doodle on a piece of paper. "A=1, B=2... ^ = 32?"

12:30 PM

Gibbs and Tony had arrived with lunch, but as a price, they needed something to give him.

"There's no fingerprints in the evidence file," McGee said. "Even if they were, they'd be twenty years old on paper, so hard to match from. However, had better luck with the owner. Meet Dorothy Richardson, age 62, resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland. No criminal background. Owner of the Freddy Fazbear franchise since 1987."

"Good, let's talk to her," said Gibbs.

"Tried already. Won't talk to the Police, not about the missing kids, and not about Jeremy's bite – she said something about that being under court seal. Says she made that mistake once," McGee reported.

"What about Mike?" Gibbs demanded.

"Claims to know nothing, manager takes care of all the hiring and firing, after all. As far as she's concerned, he walked off the job. Said if she heard we'd been bothering anyone at her restaurant, she'd file a harassment lawsuit. Then she hung up."

"Oooh," Abby said, still at Bishop's desk. "I already don't like her."

"And what do you two have?" Gibbs demanded.

"A lot of conjecture, but nothing definite. There's just no consistency, each time I think I've found a pattern, it falls apart."

Gibbs put Abby's Cafpow on his own desk and eyed them grumpily.

"Actually Gibbs, I wasn't done. I've got one last piece of creepy information. I've pulled phone records for the last two weeks, for my sister's shifts, Mike's shifts, and Nick's shifts between the hours of 11 PM to 7 AM – the times they said they got those calls, but you know what I found?"

Gibbs looked up. "Don't tell me, no incoming calls."

"Apparently I don't have to. No calls at all. I have no idea what that means."

Tony looked up from lunch. "That the calls," he paused dramatically, "were coming from inside the house!"

"That is the single most clichéd explanation that I've ever been unable to refute," McGee said grumpily.

"Don't feel bad, McSpooky," Tony told him, his voice growing more serious. "I can't think of a better answer either." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I've got one other question that I only now thought of. Why didn't the manager report him missing?"

"Well. Thankfully we still have an inside man," Gibbs said, looking over at McGee. "Or woman."

2:00 PM

"**ABSOLUTELY NOT**!"

Everyone in the bullpen looked up. Sarah's shout through the cell phone had probably deafened poor Tim, if everyone else could hear it.

"**I'M NOT GOING BACK THERE**!" she shouted again.

Gibbs stood from his desk, walked over to Tim, and held out his hand. The special agent gladly handed the phone over to his boss. "Sarah McGee," Gibbs said, placating.

"No! I'm not going to survive a third night there," Sarah started. Gibbs could almost hear trembling on the other end of the phone. "I'm not going back. All the tea in Pandaria couldn't get me back into Freddy's."

"If there was any possibility of us getting the answers we need any other way, we wouldn't ask. Ms. Richardson was clear, and the entire office probably knows not to answer questions from us. But you're on the inside already."

"_No, no, no..._" Sarah's voice had grown higher pitched.

"You could help people. Mike Schmidt is still missing. Kidnapped, dead, or dying," Gibbs continued relentlessly. He picked a paper from McGee's desk. "Then there were the four kids missing, assumed murdered. Tob..."

"Stop, Mr. Gibbs, please," She was on the edge of tears. "I... I just don't want to join them. I'm not one who's ever had to put on a bullet proof vest in their line of work. I think it was luck I made it through two nights there. I'm not convinced I could make it a third night. I don't want to be _one of them_."

Gibbs did stop momentarily. She wasn't an agent. But he needed her help. His gut was telling him that there was something more to learn in that Pizza shop, and Gibbs always listened to his gut. "Then we will be right there with you. We'll stake out the place over night. You'll have our numbers. If at any time, something goes wrong, we'll come in there to get you out. If you want a bullet proof vest, we'll give you one to smuggle in."

"I'll... I'll..." she took an audible breath. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I can ask. Thank you, Miss McGee."

"Do you really think something's after her, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Rule 40," was his only reply, heading around the corner.

Tony and McGee exchanged uneasy looks. Bishop only looked confused.

"If it seems someone's out to get you, they are," Tim said gloomily.

3:00 PM

"Thirty two. I keep coming back to that number," said Bishop. "Why are there 32 different characters?

"Well, it's not the answer," Tony said. "Excellent movie with Martin Freeman," he said defensively as Abby, Bishop, and McGee all stared at him.

"Still two to the fifth power," Abby said.

Bishop stared into space for a the moment. "Binary," she said finally. "Five digits of binary has a capacity of thirty two characters. A Byte is 256, but..."

"So A isn't 1, but 00001?" McGee asked, "B is 00010?"

"No, that's only 31 characters. Set A equal to zero, assume it comes first." She grabbed a sheet of paper, stared at it a moment, then flipped it over and began scribbling madly. "So if Tony was correct about 'ude' deciphering to 'the', how do you get from the u to the t?"

Tim pulled up a blank spreadsheet and started typing madly.

"Wait," Abby said, excited. "Remember? All of the final letters weren't cyphered in the first place. Work right to left."

"Right, right, thank you Jimmy!" Bishop said. "How do you go from 'd' to 'h'?"

"D is 00011, H is 00111. Subtracting H from D you get E, 00100... the last letter in the word," said Tim.

"Yes... no. Right answer, but it's better. You add D to E to get H. What happens if you add 'H' to 'U'. You get a 'T', right?"

"No," McGee said. "You'd get... the at sign, probably. 00111 + 10100 is 11011. T is 10011."

"We're so close," Abby said frustrated.

Bishop doodled for a few moments on the piece of paper. "I've got it. It's an inverse, an XOR."

"What?" asked Tony. "I've understood what you've said up to now, but that lost me."

"It doesn't care about the numbers, it looks at the bits. The first digit has a zero in the first, but a one in the second, so it puts down a one. Second digit is both zeros, so it stays zero. Third digit is both ones, so it becomes a zero. Fourth and fifth digits are like the second."

"That's fiendish," said Abby. "I'm impressed," she admitted a moment later.

"Give me another few minutes. Trying to remember how to do an OR check in a spreadsheet." Tim said, still typing furiously. "Alright. Let's try this out. "E"... that's right "D"... excellent... returns. Perfect. Alright. Start reading me letters. Abby and Tony, start writing down the letters I give you. Remember, we're working right to left.

3:30 PM

When they were finally done, Abby was distinctly unhappy.

_ Fact one: the manager and other employees all have stayed the night here without a problem. Freddy and his crew patrol, but don't bother them. Specifically, Foxy doesn't charge them. (What's the difference between us?)_

_ Fact two: It was these same animatronics that were in the former Pizza shop, leading to the bite incident, a mere three days after the murder. (Witnesses?)_

_ Fact three: According to newspaper reports, the police kept watch a full two weeks after the disappearances were reported. The whole bite incident spooked people further._

_ The missing kids could have left before whatever happened, but I don't think so. They turned the place upside down afterward. They weren't in the Animatronics... but with the way they act, I think they know where. _

_ I just wish asking them didn't feel like suicide. _

_ If you're reading this, I sure hope you're with the police, as Freddy's seems to have a strict hide the body policy... and I don't trust them not to come swipe my computer._

_ Hopefully the code would be too hard for them._

"Not a lot of new information," Gibbs said. "But he seems to be outright accusing management of keeping things secret."

"And his place was broken into. Think this gives us probable cause?" asked Tony.

"We'd have to get real lucky with a judge, I think," Bishop said. "It's a lot of conjecture."

Tim's phone rang. He didn't answer it at first. "Boss, 'suicide', he called it. Do we have to..."

Gibbs nodded. "We need the answers, Tim."

Tim's face paled slightly as he answered it. Then he looked at the rest of the team. "It's Sarah. She's in."


	6. Night 3: Alone in the Dark

_Tim in his car, wincing_.

* * *

10:45 PM

Tim parked the car in Fazbear's lot. "Can you see us, Tony?" he asked his bluetooth.

"I can, Tim. I'm to your one o'clock. Blue sedan. Gibbs will take over around three or so."

"I see it," said Sarah. "Thank you again, Tony. And thank Gibbs for me."

"I will," Tony promised.

"Got your jacket and the questions?" Tim asked his sister.

"I do, Tim," Sarah said, a bit nervously. "Wish me luck." Sarah got out of the car, and headed down the path to the back door, and let herself in.

"Hey there!" the Janitor called. "That you, Sarah?"

"It is," she said heading for the party room. "What's up?"

"Larry left a note for you on the guard's desk. But hey, we had a late party. Can you help me finish up?"

"Certainly," Sarah said, setting down her backpack with a thump. As they picked up bags of trash to take outside, Sarah took some initiative. "You know, I never did ask your name."

"Stephen." he said evenly."And you are?"

"Sarah," she replied. "How long have you been working here?"

"A few years," he said. Then he stopped suddenly in his tracks. "Oh! That reminds me. Call came in from the owner. Said in no uncertain terms that if anyone was caught talking to the police regarding the missing kids or Mike, we'd be out of a job lickety split."

Sarah narrowed her eyes, "That's not legal, is it?"

"More than my job is worth," the Janitor said grimly, depositing the bag in the dumpster.

"Were you even here when it happened?" Sarah asked, lifting her own bag of plates and mostly eaten Pizza into the green container.

"Mike?" he asked. Then he caught Sarah's eye. "Oh, then? No. I've worked here since it opened, but I wasn't ever at the old place," he coughed. "A few months. Meant a few months. Sometimes I wonder why I'm still here. The kids, I guess," he glanced over at the stage. The animatronics were looking over at the now clean party room, almost approvingly. "They're not nearly so scary in the daylight. Especially when they've got kids around them. Always seem to warm up around them."

Sarah looked over at Pirate Cove's out of order sign. "How long has that been out of order?"

"What? Oh Foxy? Almost a month now. Mechanic said he had to wait for some parts. I'm thinking he had to make them by hand." He shook his head. "Foxy was always my favorite."

After a few more minutes of straightening up tables, she glanced at her watch. "I better go make sure everything's OK in the office," she told him. "Anything else you need help with?"

"Should be good," he said, waving. "Thanks for the help," he said, finally giving her a wan smile. He looked up at Freddy. "I'll get out of here on time."

Sarah followed his line of sight. Freddy was looking at her now, and any approval that he had felt before appeared to be gone. The janitor headed out to take one last bag of trash to the dumpster.

She walked over to the stage. "I don't know what you saw," she said, her voice lowered. "But we've got some of the best investigators on it. If you know anything about the missing kids, let me know tonight. Help us catch the ones who did it. It's not me, and it wasn't Mike."

The animatronics didn't speak. They didn't move.

She grabbed her backpack, and headed to the office.

Larry had left an envelope for her. It had a reimbursement check for the tailoring job, and a small note. "You and your brother have questions, I'll try to provide answers. Tomorrow."

At 11:30, Stephen called. "Shutting off the lights. Have a good night."

"Thanks!"

A safe night was unlikely. A good night was out of the question. She should have brought a bat, but that would have brought accusations of damaging the animatronics. She pulled the carefully wrapped vest from her backpack. The black vest with the white "NCIS" would be a dead giveaway if anyone caught her with it on, but she was willing to take that chance. The weight of the Kevlar was a comfort against the horrors that she knew awaited her, the collar of her uniform was barely visible above the top.

12:00  
100% Power remaining.

Right as her cell phone clicked over to midnight, the land line gave its "Ring ring!"

Too bad her brother couldn't actively tap into the phone, or she's finally figure out who was leaving these disturbing phone messages.

''_Hello, hello? Hey you're doing great! Most people don't last this long. I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died. Th-th-that's not what I meant. Uh, anyway I better not take up too much of your time. Things start getting real tonight._

"And I'd have moved on if Gibbs hadn't brought be back in," she muttered. "Who IS This!" she demanded the phone. As before, though, the Phone Guy just continued on.

"_Uh... Hey, listen, I had an idea: if you happen to get caught and want to avoid getting stuffed into a Freddy suit, uhh, try playing dead! You know, go limp. Then there's a chance that, uh, maybe they'll think that you're an empty costume instead. Then again if they think you're an empty costume, they might try to... stuff a metal skeleton into you. I wonder how that would work. Yeah, never mind, scratch that. It's best just not to get caught._"

"Yeah, yeah." She agreed. "Best not to get caught." Still... playing dead is how you were supposed to survive a **real **bear coming up to you, so... she wouldn't let it come to that, right? Right.

"_Um... Ok, I'll leave you to it. See you on the flip side._"

"No you won't,"she said, "Because you're a creepy ghost that lives in a phone." Sarah pulled up the tablet. Curtains closed in Pirate's cove, all three of the band on stage, all was right with the Pizzeria. Before Sarah could turn off the cameras, static began to fill the monitor **(it's me)**.

She rubbed her eyes. She'd imagined that. When the static cleared, though, Bonnie was off the stage.

"That's **CHEATING**!" Sarah exclaimed, as she flipped the camera to see him scanning the party hall. The voice was right. Things were getting real. She put the tablet down, couldn't afford to waste power early. She needed music, and why had she forgotten her flashlight?

1:30  
77% Power remaining

No silhouette thrown against the hallway meant the bunny had hopped off, so Sarah opened the left door again. So far, other than the early start, it was actually going slightly better than last night. She'd been keeping an eye on the Fox, who had yet to put his creepy head outside his curtain.

She could hear Chica rumbling in the kitchen again, pots and pans clattering. No need to check for her. She flipped to the east hall corner. If someone really wanted to leave her a message, she figured she'd find it there. But while the rules poster was missing, all she could find was a poster of four children, or perhaps four masks (she could picture 'The Scream' in her mind), tears straining the faces as if they'd gushed down the cheeks, like in some sort of bad anime.

Sarah felt momentarily sick. The Japanese word for death was pronounced exactly like the number four. Ugh. Again, the screen filled with static (**IT'S ME!). **She saw it this time, she'd swear to it. She put down the tablet again, breathing heavily. What he hell was that?

It was silent.

Silent.

Sarah flicked the light in the right hallway, and was startled AGAIN by Chica staring at her with hungry eyes. She slammed the door.

"Go have a Pizza, you stupid bird!" she shouted, going to check the other door. But the hallway was clear. She pulled up the monitor, flicking through rapidly, spotting a closed curtain, and Bonnie patrolling the party hall.

"That was too close," she said aloud, wiping sweat from her brow. She was starting to realize exactly how hot this Kevlar was. She let the fan blow on her face for a few moments while she waited for Chica to depart.

3:15 AM  
40% power remaining.

The night had gotten rougher, and she'd fallen below the blackout line. She HAD to do better at listening to the footsteps of them walking. These were robots, weight: a few hundred pounds, stealth shouldn't be one of their stronger modes.

And Foxy's curtain had parted slightly, with Foxy looking up at the camera, ready for just the right time to take his run at the wide open office. And she was pretty sure he wasn't going to run just to ask what day it was.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. She was a better gamer then these three animatronics. She was going to run her streak to three nights. She'd prove it.

She heard the steps echoing through the halls. She flicked the left light, but the hallway was clear. No Bonnie. One of these times, they were going to switch it up just to mess with her. She was about flick the other light when she heard the clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen.

"Thank you Chica," she muttered. That'd save her a modicum of precious power. She had to resist the urge to check the hall light anyway.

She was also resisting the urge to constantly check on the fox. Paranoid behavior would cause her to blow her power. She needed to settle herself.

"**Huh. Huh. Huh.**"

Sarah looked to left and right and swallowed. Then she picked up the tablet and flipped to the show stage. The empty show stage.

"No... no... no," Sarah said, she flipped to the party room, and saw Bonnie, his eyes scanning the party room, as if daring a single napkin to be out of place. In the back of the room, she could out make out two pinpricks of light staring right at the camera.

"Nonononono," Sarah said, the tablet clattering on the desk. "I cannot juggle another one of these things."

It was time to go. She pulled out her cell phone, punched in the numbers... and it took her a second to realize there was no dial tone. How was there no dial tone? She pulled it in front of her face. She didn't have a signal. "How is... how is that possible? I had full bars when I checked two days ago! How do you go from full to zero bars?" Wait. Those phone messages. There was a landline. She turned to the wall behind her and picked up the phone.

She got an earful of that god awful noise a modem made when it was trying to connect to another modem. It almost sounded like there was a human voice buried in that noise, but she couldn't make it out. Alarmed that it might anger the animatronics further, she quickly put the handle back on the receiver.

Sarah was known to swear, but she was still glad her brother wasn't around to hear her sailor speak.

There was no escape, she'd just have to make it through. The hard way.

She flicked the right hallway light, but Chica wasn't ready to pounce just yet. Bonnie was in the party room. She flicked over to Pirates cove, where it looked like Foxy was preparing his charge.

"Prioritize Foxy," she told herself. "And Freddy. The other two I can hear, if I'm careful." She glanced at her power meter, and she'd better be careful.

5:00 AM  
15% Power remaining.

Her signal was still blocked. She was still under the blackout line – though it was close. Foxy had taken a stab at her, but she'd caught it. He was hiding behind his curtains again. Maybe he had to build up the power to make a full charge and wouldn't have a go at her for the rest of the night. That'd be nice. In fact, it might be necessary. She could still see those two pinpricks of light at the far end of the party room.

5:15  
11% Power remaining.

This wasn't good, this really wasn't good. Bonnie was parked outside of her left hand door, and that power level was going down. And Sarah would swear that the bratty bunny was humming something.

5:30  
6% Power remaining

Bonnie was gone, and Chica was now sitting outside her other door. She'd given up checking on Foxy, still hiding behind his curtain. The bear was still hiding in the shadows of the party room. This was going to be close.

5:45  
2% Power remaining

For the first time in what felt like forever, she was alone for a few seconds. She dared a final glance at the curtains. Foxy was peaking out, but still there. She had no idea where the other two were, but if they came in before it went dark, she was ready to take off running.

?:?  
0% Power remaining.

The lights had gone out. The stairs, Sarah's terrified mind had informed her, were likely still there. She clutched her backpack against her chest, she could hear them walking towards, at least three of them, probably all of them. The doors wouldn't close. The doors wouldn't close. Her breaths came in quick, shuddering gasps.

Several seconds later, they stopped. She could hear... breathing from he right. Chica, had to be Chica.

Then there was more footsteps on the on the other side. Bonnie, she supposed. She was trapped like a rat, and she knew it. Then, one more set of footsteps, soft, deep laughter accompanying them all the way down the hall way.

A bear's face glowed briefly in the darkness, and then, of all the creepy improbabilities, music began to play. "March of the Toreadors?" she thought. As it proceeded past the part she was familiar with, it went.. wrong somehow. There was more music interposed between the notes.

It was her iPod, and those were the Westminster chimes.

The music stopped, and the bear's face went away. A moment later, she heard scurrying feet, and she closed her eyes preparing for the worst.

About a minute later, she blinked them open again. The office was lit up. She was confused for a moment before she realized that she'd made it. She picked the tablet off the floor, and tapped the stage. All three animatronics were in their proper place, and ready for a day of entertaining the kids.

Sarah put the tablet on the desk, then ran for the bathroom before she soiled her uniform in relief.

6:15

She had stashed the NCIS Kevlar back in her backpack, and tried to clean up as best she could. Naturally, she'd remembered the antiperspirant, but forgotten the flashlight. What was it about this place?

It didn't matter. She wasn't coming back here, ever again. Yes. She'd said that last night, but this time she meant it.

She was back in the office, her iPod going when a knock on the door caused her to jump.

Again.

"Rough night?" Larry asked.

Sarah stood. "Yeah, Freddy got insomnia," she said sourly.

"We don't have much time," Larry said, waving his hands, "I've taken a guess at what your brother and his boss would have asked for..."

"First question, how did you know we'd have questions?"

"Owner gave us a call. He said that if the police – or any other investigative agency – came to us for questions, we were to refer them to the Fazbear company lawyer, and not to let them in without a warrant. It doesn't take a genius to know that they already had a way around that."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"I've dug a bit myself over the last two days, and some of the stuff here's really started to bother me. So, no. I know why some people are paranoid about police, but most of them are just trying to do their job, right?"

"Right." She thought back to the list of questions. "So, the first question my brother gave me was why didn't your report Mike missing yourself?"

"Policy," Larry explained. "We've had so many people walk off the job – including Nicholas – without so much as a goodbye note , that I'm supposed to report to the owner, and he tries to contact him... or her," he added hurriedly, "before actually reporting them missing."

"Did you get a chance to tell him for Mike?"

"No, actually. We had a chain of early morning parties that day, being the first day of spring break and all. NCIS showed up before I could tell him, and I figured it was moot at that point."

"Alright, do you have a list of..."

Larry had clearly anticipated this question, and produced a folder from his jacket and handed it over to her. "Put that in your pack," he told her quietly. "Yes. It's a list of all the night guards here for the last few months."

"What's got you so nervous?" she asked.

"He's coming in, will probably be here shortly."

That explained a lot. "Second question, do you know who the day guard was when the bite happened?"

"Oscar," he told her. "Contact details are in the folder. That one comes up occasionally. They don't want..."

What they didn't want was going to have to wait, they both heard the door open in distance, then slam. Sarah opened the backpack, stuffed the folder in there, and zipped it shut. She shoved the pack under the desk.

Larry quickly walked into the hall as she did so. "Mr. Richardson, sir. Good morning, good see to you."

Mr. Richardson's deep voice echoed down the corridor. "Hi, Larry, I assume our new night-guard got the memo."

Sarah stood, walking to join Larry in the western corridor. "To refer any inquiries to your lawyer?" she asked. "I did." They studied each other for a moment, Mr Richardson was taller than her, maybe about Tony Dinozzo's height, with light brown hair, cut extremely short, with pale blue eyes. He was wearing a loose fitting blue sport coat over a white shirt and khakis.

"Good," he said simply. An unsettling, macabre grin flickered over his face. "Three nights so far?" he asked.

"Yes," Sarah asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. What did he know?

"Has Freddy stopped by to introduce himself yet" he asked. "He does so enjoy meeting the new hires."

Sarah felt her breath catch for a moment, "No. Not yet. He was content to make sure the party room was in perfect condition for today," she lied, coolly.

"Too bad. Maybe tonight. You'll be coming back, right?"

"Of course," she said, refusing to let him embarrass Larry in front of him.

"Glad to hear it," he said with a slight giggle. "Anyway. Just doing a walk through. Have a good rest of your morning."

"Take care sir," she said. When he'd gone down the hall, she whispered, "I thought the owner was Denise."

"Eh. This is her son, he does most of the work these days. Kevin Richardson."

"Last question, who does the hiring, you or him?" she asked.

"I do, only thing he takes care of is the night guard. Probably because we've had so many walk offs."

Sarah nodded, and was about to head back to the security office when Mr. Richardson shouted from the backstage room. "Larry... Sarah... in here NOW!"

Larry and Sarah glanced at each other then walked down the hallway to join him.

"There's a _suit_ missing," he said, pointing at the set of suits hung under the cameras. "This is why I hired you!" he said, angrily.

"That's the same number of suits that was there when I started here, _sir_," Sarah said frostily.

"She's right, sir. I saw them when I did the walk through... three days ago. I'll get the inventory sheets," he said.

Kevin turned from Sarah to Larry, frowning. Then he turned back to count again. "No, you're right. They're all here. My mistake."

Having already had enough excitement for one day, and not wanting to blow her cover (such as it was), Sarah was conciliatory. "That's alright sir, simple mistake." She turned on her heel and headed back to the security room. Larry went back to his office.

She pulled up the tablet, watching as the boss went from room to room, even the bathrooms, growing ever more upset. She had to put the tablet down when Phil came in, advising her that her brother was here. She picked up her backpack and cell phone, which now had full bars and no less than six missed calls. She had a guess who they were from. Compared what she'd gone through, she'd take that yell.

"Alright, have a good day, Phil."

""Just let Spring Break be over soon," he grumbled.

Sarah tossed her backpack in the back seat, and clambered into the front.

"Boss isn't happy with you."

"I'm not happy period," Sarah said, "But I got the information he wanted."

"But you turned your phone off. He was tempted to storm the place, he thought you might be in trouble."

"I wish he had, would have saved a few years off my life. I tried to call for a rescue about three... and I had no signal. Landline gave me nothing but static."

"What?" asked Tim, startled.

"I swear to God, Tim. And I ran out of power... and they were all ready to come at me at once until 6:00 AM got there. Don't know what it is about that time, maybe it's when they switch to day time mode.

Tim started the car, and almost immediately after, his Bluetooth picked up a phone call.

"**MCGEES!**"

Tim winced.


	7. Day 4: Down to the Wire

A smug looking man, holding his phone in his outstretched, surrendering, hands.

* * *

7:15 AM

They'd been directed to the diner. Gibbs had ordered breakfast. Sarah and Tim only did after being ordered to.

They sweated until the coffee arrived.

"So," Gibbs said, focusing on Sarah. "Why did you turn off your phone?" he said. His tone was even, but this was Gibbs, his tone was almost always even.

"I didn't," Sarah told him. "I didn't realize I had no signal until about," she tried to remember, "Quarter after three. I had just heard the most disturbing laugh I've heard in my life. Worse than Smash Bros's Crazy Hand." She met Gibbs in the eyes. "Don't tell Abby, but Freddy had left the stage. He was the background of the party room. If it wasn't for his glowing eyes, I'd not have been able to see him at all."

Gibbs considered her, then went to his coffee. "That's against federal law," he muttered. "But we wouldn't be able to prove it until tomorrow..."

"I'm serious! I wanted so badly to..." Sarah began.

"I believe you," Gibbs said quietly.

"Oh," Sarah said. "Sorry."

Gibbs smiled his half smile, and glanced at Tim.

"I'd like to think you're friends," Tim said mildly.

Gibbs shrugged and went back to his coffee.

Sarah picked up her backpack from beside her, opened it up, and pulled out the folder. She removed the clip holding it closed, and set it open on the table. Gibbs and Tim looked over with interest.

The first thing was pictures of the restaurant in the daytime, presumably during a kids party. "These rooms don't look right," Sarah said. "Trust me, I've seen enough of them over the past few nights that I'd recognize them."

"You're right," Gibbs agreed. "That's Jeremy Fitzgerald, our bite victim. This must be of the original restaurant."

The waitress had come over with breakfast. She looked at Sarah with a broad smile. "Oh, my son loves to go to Freddy's."

Sarah shrank back slightly, clearly disturbed by the mention of her workplace of fear. "I'm... I'm glad to hear it," she stuttered.

"We've gone there three times since it's opened," she continued, painfully oblivious to Sarah's apprehension. "Do you know they have this special where you get tokens based on your grades? It's been the best motivating tool EVER!" she told them.

Sarah buried herself in pancakes, desperate to not say anything.

"Best picture I ever got in my life was of my son," the waitress continued. "He climbed up on the stage to say hi to Freddy. Got him a yell from one of the servers, but Freddy just looked down at him, bent over to give him a hug. It was adorable."

Sarah looked over at her. It was clear she didn't have the same impression of the incident.

"Ever see anything odd there?" Tim asked, to take the attention away from his sister.

"What? Uhm, well," she said, taken by surprise from this line of inquiry.

"Or smell anything out of place?" Gibbs asked.

"Oh. You know, there was that one time. Was the second time we went there, I think. We had just sat down to eat, when there was this noticeable skip in Freddy's voice. It was like, 'Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza... one tah, tah, tah, two...' and everyone looked up. The animatronics were all staring at one particular pair of people. A man who looked like for all the world like he'd been just caught abusing his daughter."

Gibbs raised a dangerous eyebrow. "Was he?" he asked mildly.

"No. Wasn't the case, he explained that she was partially deaf and had to know to turn her good ear in order to hear him, or anyone else for that matter. At the same time, I caught this scent of god awful meat, was just there for a moment or two before it went away again. Might have just been my imagination, though."

"That is kind of odd," Tim said.

"Anyway, please pass along my son's well wishes to Freddy for me," she told them, and went to serve other customers.

"Yeah," Sarah whispered. "How about I don't if I don't want to end up as his new keyboard player?"

After a few minutes eating, Tim and Gibbs went back to Sarah's folder of information. There were several more pictures, showing parties both from the new restaurant, and the older larger one.

"I thought the note we decoded said that they were the same animatronics," Tim said, frowning. "Those two Freddies do not look alike."

"They were both there," Gibbs explained. "Jeremy said as much, there were new ones and old ones,"

Sarah shuddered. "I've a hard enough time with four of them," she said, having regained some of her composure. They ate in silence for a while. When they finished, Sarah spoke up. "I can't call into the real job two days running," Sarah said. "Not without a Doctor's note. Can I borrow your car again, Tim?"

Her brother nodded, putting his keys on the table.

Gibbs picked up the check without even discussing it, as the waitress brought him his second cup to go.

"You're with me then, McGee," he said.

8:00 AM, 98 hours missing

Pages of names and phone numbers had been put on each of the agent's desks as they wandered in.

"Ah! McGee," Tony said. "You're early!"

"Because we've got work to do," Gibbs said.

"And good morning to you, Boss."

Gibbs dropped papers on each of the agent's desks. "This is each and every person who's worked night guard at Freddy Fazbear's. We're calling ALL of them. I want to know what they went through, if any of them went missing. I want everything on all of them."

"Every boathouse and outhouse to be searched. Got it Boss. Been a while since I saw you this animated."

"Because Michael Schmidt is still MISSING!" he told him.

"Starting with the one from the old Day shift," Tim said.

12:30 PM

"Mr. Sinclair is no longer at this address?" Bishop asked. "Do you have a forwarding one?"

...

"Yes, this NCIS. Naval Criminal Investigation Service. Is this Peter Wilcox?" Tim said, "We'd like to ask about Freddy Fazbear's..."

...

"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Grant... when did John go missing?" Tony asked.

...

"Two large, one all cheese, one cheese and Pepperoni," Bishop ordered. Lunch was to be brought in today.

2:00 PM

Tony hung up his last call, then pulled up what he'd found to go over it.

Sensing a lull in the conversation in the office, Gibbs looked up from his own work. "What have we got?" he demanded.

"Meet Oscar Reynolds," McGee started. "Day shift guard across from Jeremy. Moved to Oregon as part of taking what he called a 'Real Job' after Freddy Fazbears Family Restaurant. Was mostly cordial, said he got visits from Private Detectives every so often. Said he didn't meet Jeremy until after the accident. Had a touch of survivor's guilt – he'd had to call in for a few days after being hospitalized with appendicitis."

McGee continued. "Other than that, he'd had no complaints about working there. He confirmed that there were two sets of the main animatronics, the new ones: 'The Toys', and the decommissioned older models which were being held for parts. The toys had a few more glitches, but they were being worked on, slowly but surely."

A new face popped up on the plasma. "Missing guard #1, John Grant," Tony said. A brown haired man with light hazel eyes looked back at them. "Sophomore at American University. Was marked as a drop out about a week after he started working. Missing persons case referred to the FBI by his parents at the end of the semester. Personal computer had been wiped clean before the FBI got to it."

"Missing guard #2. Lois Whitehall," Bishop added, adding his face to the plasma. 25 year old out of Olney. Lived on his own. Noticed missing by his landlord a few weeks after his employment by way of unpaid rent. Never actually reported missing, apparently it looked like he'd packed up and left." Bishop sounded annoyed. "Tried to find next of kin, couldn't actually do it. I'll keep working on it."

"Which brings me to missing guard #3, Bryan Grant. No relation to John," Tony added quickly. "Lived in Poolesville, reported missing by his wife after she came back from a week away. They'd needed some extra money for house repairs. Had a history of depression, police investigated, but had no leads."

Gibbs said nothing, studying the plasma. "McGee, look up Kevin Richardson. Son of the owner."

Tim obliged after a few minutes of searching, found Kevin Richardson, and added his driver's license to the collection on the plasma. There was silence around the bullpen as they stared at the similarity of all four of them. The three agents pulled all of the guards, running through them for hair color, eye colors, and facial features. They didn't all meet the pattern... but a good majority of them did.

"This will get us a warrant," Gibbs stated.

4:30

They'd been granted three warrants. One of them had been for Ms. Richardson's home, the ostensible owner. One for Freddy Fazbear's itself, just for completeness's sake. The one they were choosing to execute was for Kevin's abode.

Kevin Richardson's home was a red brick middle class house in Rockville. one of the ones that were probably around fifty years old, just old enough to be torn down the next time it changed owners, but otherwise in good condition. There with a well manicured lawn, a few trees, and a driveway, currently serving as home to an NCIS Van.

Gibbs and Bishop had raced to the back of the house, just in case Kevin decided to pull a runner. McGee and Tony had gone to the front door and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. After a few minutes, Tony rang it again. Still no answer.

"Going to pick it," Tony said. The warrant didn't require the owner's presence after all. After a about a minute, the lock clicked open, and Tony and McGee went room by room clearing the building of any potential hostiles. However, there was nothing living in the house, not even pets or plants.

Neither, to the agents disappointment, did they find any dead things. If Kevin was the one who'd caused the disappearance of now four missing Fazbear's guards, direct evidence of this was not to be found here.

They found a desktop computer to be seized for Abby's perusal, and, in the closet, a purple hoodie, a match for the one seen infiltrating Mike's apartment complex.

"We're going to need another stakeout. We need to find this man tonight," Gibbs said. "Bishop? Tony? You stay with the house. I'll be back with a car." He turned to McGee, "Need you make two calls. First, call Abby, I absolutely need her to stay late tonight."

"She's not going to like that," McGee replied. "It's bowling night."

"Tell her the alternative is to see Freddy Fazbear convicted of murder."

"Might work," McGee conceded as they climbed back in the van. He thought he knew the other person he needed to call, and it was one he really didn't want to make, even more than making Abby miss bowling.

"You'll also need to call your sister. We need her to play night guard at Freddy's again. I know she's scared, and it might be for good reason. But if we leave Freddy's unguarded, I think we'll lose whatever evidence might be left there. Even when we catch Kevin, there's a chance he has an accomplice."

McGee groaned. The worst part was, it made sense. "Can I have permission to share our progress on the case, so she knows how vital this is?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Gibbs said. "Tell her NCIS will cover her car repair if she doesn't get paid."

"Great," said Tim dryly.

6:00 PM

To Tim's surprise, his sister was on board with spending one more night at Freddy's. "For a few extra dollars? Not on your life. But, if it helps to catch a serial killer?" she told him, "I... I just can't say no. I had a nap at work today, and I had a dream. Dreamed of four kids, sitting around a birthday table, each wearing a mask of one of Freddy's characters. Even my dreams are starting to be about that place."

There was a pause. Tim wasn't sure to say to a non-sequitur like that. "You feeling OK?" he asked.

"I think so. Was thinking about what we learned at breakfast. Was thinking how easy it would be for someone to get a costume like a Freddy Fazbear, or a Bonnie Bunny, and do unspeakable things. Partially because it's already happened." There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Because it's children, right?"

"Gibbs would think so," Tim told her.

"Good, Good..."

"Are you sure, Sarah, you're sounding punch drunk."

"Confident," she said irritably, relaxing Tim somewhat. "I'll make sure nobody enters or leaves."

"Get some sleep – some real sleep – before you start."

Another pause, Sarah was probably going to snap at him again. "Good advice, Timothy. As soon as Gibbs has his man, get me out of there, please," she said finally.

That was also good advice.

11:30 PM

McGee and Gibbs had taken Dinozzo and Bishops position waiting for the return of Kevin Richardson. He was an actual suspect now, fingerprints on the hoodie had matched the ones taken from Mike's apartment.

Tim was acutely aware his sister's shift started half an hour ago. According to what she said, she wasn't in danger yet, but if Kevin wasn't here soon... Tim couldn't shake the feeling something awful was about to happen.

"Heads up, McGee,"

A bright red Ford Explorer had pulled into the driveway. The ignition was turned off, and a man stepped out. Gibbs glanced at his agent, and they both nodded. They got out of the car together, approaching the man cautiously.

"Kevin Richardson? NCIS," said Gibbs authoritatively, "Hands up!"

Kevin turned around, a smart phone in his hand. He held his hands clearly in front of him, but clearly manipulating his phone.

"I said hands up!" Gibbs ordered.

"I'm just calling my lawyer. Mrs. McDonald, I'm going to need you to meet me at NCIS as soon as possible," he told the phone.

Then he put his hands up, the phone still on speaker.


	8. Night 4: Caught!

Night 4: Caught

_A stretcher with a Freddy Fazbear costume being loaded onto an ambulance._

* * *

11:00 PM

"Set a guard to watch all night, watch all night, watch all night," hummed Sarah as she walked in to Freddy Fazbear's from the parking lot. "Wait. Aren't I the fair lady?" she asked herself suddenly.

"Back for Night 4?" the janitor asked as she walked in. "Gunning for the record?"

The refrain, "It's for the kids," wandered through her mind. "Good evening, Stephen. Uhm, what record?"

"The record of days worked by a night guard! We lose so many to the general creepiness of the animatronics. Average is two nights worked, though some don't make it past the first night."

Sarah could feel her stomach turning over. "And.. where does that record stand?"

Stephen chuckled. "Come back tomorrow and you'll be tied for it. Come back for another week and you'll own it."

She took a deep breath to avoid gulping down air. "Who... who's the reigning champ?" she asked, trying to pretend she wasn't scared. "Mike?"

Stephen shook his head. "You're tied with the last contestant, four nights," he leaned against his mop and thought. "What was his name? Hagrid? Haggar? Harold? Think Harold was one. Bryan was the other. Both came in for the fifth night. Harold even came in for his check the next day. Boss offered him overtime, and he quit on the spot." He mused on that for a second. "Huh. I could use the overtime."

"Awesome. Need any help tonight?"

"Nah. We had a Bar Mitsvah before dinner, but nothing major afterward."

She turned to look at the games the waitress had mentioned the day before. There were the usual collection of "Stop the light", "Wackamole", and Skeeball games, and apparently a very dated version of "Deal or No Deal", played for tickets. There were a few classic arcade games as well, a Ms. Pac-Man and to Sarah's astonishment, a copy of "Addams Family Pinball". High above them, on a shelf, sat what appeared to be a very large jack in the box. It appeared to be locked shut.

"Don't bother with the pinball game," Stephen told her, "Owner's too cheap to properly maintain it."

"Insult to injuries," Sarah muttered. "Alright, I'm going to wander a bit before you turn out the lights. Let me know when you do." She turned to leave, then turned back. "Sorry, uh, there was one other thing. Kevin... the owner I mean, did he stick around for the start of your shift?"

"No. Larry said he left right after you did."

"Alright, thanks Stephen."

The janitor nodded.

Sarah turned, and walked over to the animatronics, their big eyes focused on her. She took a deep whiff, and caught a distinct whiff of rotting meat. "They've got him," she said. "Give me tomorrow and I'll prove it."

If they heard her, they didn't respond. A second whiff of rotting meat and Sarah thought she was going to be sick, she left her backpack on one of the tables, and walked backstage to the maintenance room.

There was still the spare endoskeleton lying on the table and the heads on the back wall. There were three Freddy heads, four Bonny heads including the one on the table, and a spare Chica head. She turned to count the suits hanging on the wall. She frowned, and counted again. She was still one short, there was exactly one fewer Freddy suit than heads... everything else matched up.

Did that lead credence to the phone warning? Wouldn't there be a full suit AND head missing if being stuffed was the fate of people who got caught? On the other hand...

"Hey, Stephen?" she asked as she reclaimed her backpack. "Are the suits ever cleaned?" The phone voice had said they weren't... but..."

"Sure. Every so often, the suits are switched with the ones backstage so they can be cleaned. Owner usually takes care of that."

That made sense. Too much sense. "Thanks again, Stephen," she said, heading to the office. "Get me out of here soon, guys."

11:55 PM

Everyone but Vance had crowded into observation. Abby, Ducky, and Palmer were sitting at a table, polishing off the ice cream that Ducky had provided. It was that kind of case.

Bishop, Tony, and McGee were watching the room. Two of Gibbs most hated kind of peoples were sitting at one side of the table: lawyers and people who hurt children.

"Did you find anything on his computer?" Tony asked Abby.

"No," Abby said between spoonfuls, "Just the usual collection of business records and expenses. No weird e-mails, no weird files. No codes," she said sadly.

"You enjoyed that, didn't you," Tony told her.

"I love my lab, but every once in a while I like to visit the other worlds of NCIS," she replied.

The door to interrogation opening and closing caught their attention, and everyone looked in to interrogation.

Gibbs dropped a thick blue folder onto the table with a loud "Smack!". He stood over it, simply staring at Kevin Richardson.

"Couldn't this wait for morning?" Mrs. McDonald asked in what was clearly in her 'I'm being reasonable' voice.

"Nope," Gibbs said, continue to level his glare.

Mrs. McDonald waited for a minute or two, clearly expecting Gibbs to explain himself. "And why not?" she asked, still reasonably.

Gibbs continued to glare.

"Why not?" Mrs. McDonald asked again a few minutes later. She was clearly used to having her patience tested, but she was up against the master.

"Where's Mike Schmidt?" Gibbs finally asked, directing the question at Kevin.

"Don't answer that," Mrs. McDonald ordered her client. "Why can't we wait for morning?" she asked a third time.

"Because Mike Schmidt is missing." Gibbs eyes did not so much as flicker. "Where is he?"

"I have no idea where Mr. Schmidt is," Kevin said smugly. "You found out he was missing before I did."

12:00 AM  
100% Power remaining

The clock had hit 12:00 AM, and the animatronics were making sure that Sarah knew it. Bonnie had left the stage before the phone stopped ringing.

_ "Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow, day 4. I knew you could do it."_

"C'mon. Need to know who this is. You could help us crack this case wide open," Sarah told the phone voice, as she confirmed Bonnie in the maintenance room.

_"Uh, hey, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow." _There was a loud banging sound, and Sarah jumped before realized that the sound was coming over the speakers. Her doors were still open.

_"It's-It's been a bad night here for me. Um, I-I'm kinda glad that I recorded my messages for you," _there was an audible throat clear.

"Wait. These are recorded? How do you record messages? How do you know when to send them..."

"_Uh, hey, do me a favor." _Two more BANGS! "_Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room?"_

She'd done that. There was nobody there. She forced herself to check Pirate's Cove, confirming the curtains were closed.

Another loud "BANG!" came from the phone._ "I'm gonna to try to hold out until someone checks. Maybe it won't be so bad... _BANG! BANG! ..._Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there."_

"My God," whispered Sarah. Music had started. "Oh my god." The Toreador march. She had just found out what that meant last night. Freddy.

"_You know..." _there was an unrecognizable moan. _"Oh,__ no_" There was a weird jumble of noises that ended with a loud SKREEECH!

What had happened to that creepy... helpful... caller? Where was he calling from? If they were messages, where were they stored? She stared into the wall for a few moments.

"Get a grip, Sarah," she told herself, flicking the outer lights. Answers would be forth coming. She just had to survive the night.

12:10 AM

"There is no evidence that my client had anything to do with Mr. Schmidt's disappearance," Mrs. McDonald said. "Charge him with something or we're leaving right now."

"This is going to be good," Tony said quietly in observation. There were murmured agreement from the rest of the team.

"Alright," said Gibbs, still glaring at Kevin."You're under arrest for breaking and entering the apartment of Michael Schmidt, as well as general trespass in the apartment building."

"What?" said Mrs. McDonald, her composure faltering for a moment. "That's not what..."

"How do you think we linked him to the kidnapping?" demanded Gibbs, slamming the table with his palm, causing both lawyer and client to stare, and Kevin to finally meet Gibbs's eyes.

"I... I had no idea," admitted Mrs. McDonald, glancing at her client.

"I'm surprised this misogynist has a lawyer that's a woman," Gibbs said angrily.

"That's uncalled..." she began.

Gibbs opened the folder and began to pull drivers license photos, putting them on the table. "Michael Schmidt! John Grant! Lois Whitehall! Bryan Grant! All four night guards, all four missing. All last known whereabouts was YOUR business!" He pushed them towards Kevin. "**Look at them!**" Gibbs demanded. Kevin looked down at them calmly.

"All of them walked off the job," Kevin said, still sounding smug.

Gibbs repeated the names. "All men! All who look like you. WHY?"

Kevin looked back at Gibbs. "My rugged charm."

"Mr. Gibbs, I want a few minutes alone to talk to my client."

"We don't have the..."

"It's not optional. It's our right."

Angrily, Gibbs led them to a private room across the hall.

From observation, Ducky looked down at the scene. "He's got a nervous twitch," he observed. "I could see it on his left hand. From his reactions... I would say he's scared... but I don't think he's scared of Jethro."

"How could anyone not be scared of an angry Gibbs?" asked Abby.

"A very good question in its own right, Abigail. One that if we figure out, I think we figure out Mr. Kevin Richardson."

12:20 AM  
94% Power remaining

Bonnie was in the hallway, his head staring angrily back up at the camera. Chica was in the kitchen and...

She heard laughter, deep, paranoia inducing laughter. She flipped the camera to Pirates cove first, on accident, but those curtains were closed. In the party hall, however, Freddy Fazbear's glowing eyes stared back at the camera from the darkness just beneath the show stage.

"No...nonononono." This was escalating too quickly.

If she just locked up the doors, would she survive? No... she'd run out of power first, and she couldn't count on rescue. She'd learned that yesterday.

She put the camera down, and flicked the left light on... and promptly slammed the door. Bonnie wasn't even there.

She clutched her bulletproof vest, and wiped her sweating forehead. This was going to be it, she thought to herself as she reopened the door, flickering the light one more time. Then the right door's light. It was all clear.

She pulled up the cameras for the party hall and... as static (**it's me**) filled the camera, Pirate's cove. She flicked the light for a third time in two minutes, and this time, when the door slammed, it obscured the blue face of Bonnie Bunny.

12:30 AM

Ten minutes later, they'd been brought back to interrogation.

"Why do you keep hiring people that look like you?" Gibbs asked again.

"Told you. I hire people with rugged charm," Kevin said.

"Nah. That's not it." He pulled four more photos out of his folder.

"Children?" asked Mrs. McDonald. "What does that have to do..."

"These were the children that were murdered in the original Fazbear restaurant," Gibbs said. "You remember them, right?"

"Something's bothering me," said Tony, going back to the table for the folder that Sarah had brought them that morning.

"The twitch has stopped, and he's squeezing his thumb," Ducky observed. "I think Jethro's on the right track."

"I remember my mother talking about them," Kevin said.

"Stop answering questions," his lawyer told him. "Kevin, I told you this."

"According to the police report," Gibbs continued, "Someone convinced the kids to go into an employee only area while wearing one of the costumes. And killed them."

"There was no proof that anyone ever died. Nobody..." Kevin started.

"Last warning from me, Kevin."

"But let's say someone did," Gibbs continued, unperturbed. "If someone did lure someone and did kill them, what would they do with the body?" he asked.

"On advice of my lawyer, I have no comment."

"Still squeezing his thumb," said Ducky. "Need to take a slightly different direction..."

"I've got it. They're identical. There's only one identical thing from the old restaurant and that is it! **THAT** is what he's afraid of!" He wrote quickly but clearly on a piece of paper. "Say a prayer for me, guys."

"Why, Tony?" Palmer asked.

"As you all as my witnesses, I'm about to break rule twenty two."

They all stared at him.

"I will. I'll say a nice prayer at your funeral," Tim said as Tony left the room.

12:35  
90% Power Remaining

Freddy had been content to stare at the camera. Sarah would have been content to stare back, but Chica had already swung by the office once tonight, and there was that Fox down in Pirates cove that would charge her the instant her back was turned.

So that was a no go.

She put the tablet down. "Just stay put for a while, Freddy, " she begged.

A crash from the kitchen caught her attention and, acting on instinct, flicked the left light on, but without Bonnie there, quickly flicked it off again.

She'd volunteered for this. Why? It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Checking the right light again, she picked up the table again, and flipped methodically through all the cameras. No movement from Freddy or Foxy but... that poster. That poster with the four kids... where the rules used to be. It was identical to her dream.

Who put it there?

What the hell did it mean?

How was any of this possible?

"Focus. Ponder mind reading animatronics later," she told herself, in awe (despite her fear) that had been a completely serious statement.

12:45

Tony knocked on the interrogation room door.

The door opened roughly five seconds later, and Tony received the full power of the Gibbs glare, usually reserved for people that went after members of the team. He held up the piece of paper, and Gibbs snatched it out of his hand. Gibbs scanned it and gave Tony a quick nod. Then he closed the door again.

Tony went at a flat out run back to Observation, he didn't want to miss this.

"So someone," Gibbs repeated, "Lured four children into a back room by wearing a Freddy Fazbear costume and killed them. But there was blood, and someone might notice if a suit gets blood on it. So he ditches it, and walks out of the backroom in something else that's not remarkable: a Security Guard uniform."

"But," Gibbs continued, "He realizes he was seen. Not by a patron, but he'd been watched the entire time by a Freddy Fazbear animatronic, ones linked to each other, and to a police database. Then he hears from the _actual_ guard, Jeremy Fitzgerald, that the animatronics are patrolling the halls looking for a _security guard_."

Nobody needed Ducky to pointed out how tightly Mr. Kevin Richardson was gripping the table.

"Now the store reopens, with animatronics retrofitted with the facial recognition upgrades, and he wonders... do they still remember him? He hires someone who looks similar to him and turns him loose after hours, when the animatronics are in free range mode. He doesn't know his mother – the actual owner – has put in security doors to make sure the bite incident doesn't happen again. So he does the next best thing, switches the entire building to generator power for the night, in an attempt to get the guards caught and see what happens."

"After one of them is caught, he brings in another one to see if they've calmed down... they haven't..."

"Do you realize how insane you sound, Mr. Gibbs?" Mrs. McDonald interrupted. "Animatronics that learn? They're just machines, there's no intelligence inside."

"Let's test that," Gibbs said, "I'd call my agent's sister, but you've put in a cell phone jammer. That's also illegal, you know." He sat back down and leaned in towards Kevin. "So let's put you back in a security guard uniform, Mr. Richardson, and take you down to Freddy's right now. I hear they've been walking around for the last hour, and maybe they'd remember..."

Kevin let out a high pitched shriek. Mrs. McDonald backed up so fast she fell over in her chair.

"No! No! They remember... they remember... they'd kill me!"

"They remember WHAT?" Gibbs demanded.

"Me coming out of the secure room... Freddy shouldn't have seen it. It's not on his map. He shouldn't have been able to see it. Then they started to hunt..."

"What secure room? **Where's Mike**?"

"Don't know. Don't know where Mike is... secure room is sealed," Kevin said, regaining just enough of his composure. "You won't find it."

Gibbs got up and headed for the door. "I know who to ask, though. I also know how to ask." He told one of the agents at the door to take the now charged suspect to holding. "And tell the lawyer to go home, I'm done with him. And make sure she's OK," he added belatedly.

Then he got out his cell phone, heading to the elevator, trusting his agents to follow him.

"Gibbs?" came the sleepy voice of NCIS's director from the other side. "What do you want at one o'clock in the morning?" he asked.

Gibbs told him.

"Are you crazy, Gibbs?" Vance demanded.

"No, and it needs to be now, sir."

"Alright. I'll meet you there, but you BETTER have a good explanation."

1:30  
74% power remaining.

It had not gotten any easier. She had even heard Freddy laugh a second time and it took her a bit to find his new hiding spot. "The woman's restroom? That's sick, Freddy," she told the tablet. She flipped back over to make sure Foxy knew she was still watching.

She flicked the lights cautiously, ready to catch Bonnie or Chica hiding in the corridor. She checked the cameras in the upper hallway... and what was wrong with that Chicken? Her head was rattling around on her body like some sort of bobblehead doll!

The cameras (**It's Me!**) filled up with static again, and when it cleared, Chica was gone.

Sarah closed her right hand door first and checked for Chica second. The sight of the beak filled with angry looking teeth did not, this time, surprise the poor night guard.

What did surprise her was the sound of a door being forcibly opened in the distance.

"What was that?" Sarah asked. Was there a fifth animatronic that the phone guy hadn't known about? She went back to the tablet and checked the party room. In it she saw an African American man she didn't recognize. "Oh god," she whispered. "Get out of here!" she yelled at the top of her voice. "It's not..."

The tablet was forcibly ripped from her by blue hands.

"_**SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!**__" _screamed Bonnie.

"AHHHHHHHH!" screamed Sarah.

"Where's Freddy... and what was that?" asked Kayla, sounding scared. She had been looking around when the pair of screams sounded in the distance.

"Nothing good, Kayla," Vance said grimly. Why had Gibbs asked him to bring his children with him? He drew his gun. "Stay close." At least Jared had fallen back asleep in the car.

"Came from that way," she said, pointing down the right hand passage.

Vance moved cautiously down the corridor, past Pirate's Cove, towards the lit office in the distance. When they arrived, they saw the disturbing sight of Bonnie, wrestling with Sarah, and the Animatronic was clearly winning.

Vance leveled his pistol.

"BONNIE!" Kayla shouted.

The animatronic ceased all motion, then slowly turned to look at the young girl.

Sarah slipped out of its grasp, moving against the far security door.

The animatronic straightened, looking between Sarah and Kayla, clearly conflicted. After a moment, it ponderously moved towards Kayla, turning to stand protectively between the security guard and Vance's daughter.

"Who... who are you?" asked Sarah.

"Leon Vance, NCIS, Ms. McGee," Vance told her, his pistol still trained on Bonnie.

"Sarah won't hurt me, Bonnie," Kayla told her guardian. "Her brother works for my father. He's a policeman!"

Bonnie's head turned slowly to look at Kayla again, then back at Sarah. He walked toward Sarah... but did not chase her when she rotated around against the wall. Bonnie pressed the door lock, opening the heavy security door. Both Chica and Freddy were standing outside of it. Like Bonnie, they turned to look between Sarah and Kayla. Chica looked at Freddy.

"Sarah won't hurt me," Kayla repeated. "She's a friend."

"Gibbs thinks it's the uniform," Vance confided in her. He reached over to the desk, and picked up her backpack. "Change, if you can."

Sarah looked at the trio of animatronics and sniffed the air. At the moment, she didn't smell anything unusual. She ducked into the west hall.

"Where's Mike?" Vance asked the animatronics. "He's a friend." He paused. "The guard before Sarah. Kayla... can you ask them for me?"

"Freddy?" Kayla asked promptly, "Do you know where Mike is? He's a friend of my father."

Bonnie and Chica looked at Freddy. After several seconds, all three of them turned and walked back up the east hallway. They turned into the small hallway that housed the restrooms, and Freddy pushed hard against the left hand wall. There was a groaning of rusted metal, and a doorway was revealed as the wall simply slid to one side.

On the floor inside was an empty Freddy Fazbear costume, golden colored, discarded on the ground; a weird looking Bonnie costume, full of exposed wiring; a white metal body with a fox shaped face, clearly disassembled; and against the back wall, a second Freddy costume, an empty head next to him, with Michael Schmidt looking up at them, propping himself up with his hands.

He stared at them, clearly trying to convince himself he wasn't hallucinating.

"Kayla?" Vance ordered, "Get this man some water from the bathroom. I saw cups in the kitchen when we walked by. Sarah, go call an ambulance." Vance walked up to him. "Let me help you out of that..."

Kayla took off, but Sarah stared briefly.

He waved Vance off. "Legs are broken... suit has machinery in the leggings. Know I bled, but the suit stuck to the wounds.

"I've seen the heads," Sarah said. "How'd you survive?"

"Briar patched 'em. Bought a head at a costume store and had it sitting on the table. When stuffing me in that suit didn't kill me, they threw me in here."

"Ambulance, now." Vance barked.

Sarah looked up at the animatronics, who had closed ranks around them. Freddy looked at her, then walked backwards to let Sarah pass between them, back into the party room, and outside to call an ambulance.

A few minutes later, EMTs had hooked Mike up to an IV and got him on a stretcher. They carted him, costume and all, out to the ambulance.


	9. Epilogues: Just Gold

Jeremy Fitzgerald, looking at a greeting card.

* * *

10:00 AM

Unsurprisingly, Freddy Fazbears was not open the next day. A number of the Rockville PD, as well as Gibbs's entire NCIS team were present.

Sarah McGee had even been let out of work to see what they uncovered. When the get out of work note is delivered on official NCIS stationary, it takes a pretty heartless boss to say no. Sarah did not have a heartless boss.

"So what were those things they hauled out of the back rooms?" Dinozzo asked Tim.

"The white fox thing was 'The Mangle', originally the new version of Foxy. Apparently, the endoskeleton had been broken, or turned into parts, or something. The only thing we found intact was a computer chip and a cellphone jammer."

"Which is why my cellphone couldn't call out two nights ago." Sarah commented.

"Right. We're not sure where the Golden Freddy costume came from. Might have actually been designed as a costume, or it might have been an animatronic suit with all the parts carefully removed, unlike what Mike tried to do."

"How is he?" Bishop asked.

"Recovering. He's still in the hospital undergoing evaluation due to his starvation, but he's expected to make a full recovery. He'll be in a wheelchair for a while. Both his legs had clean fractures in the tibia bones, like he was thrown in there and tried to stick the landing, only with a lot more force. He also has a ton of abrasions all over his lower body – those suits were not meant to fit a human. He'd ripped out as much as he could get away with, but couldn't get to the legs."

There was a collective wince from the rest of the group.

"If he hadn't brought along the spare head, it'd have gotten really messy," Bishop said, shuddering.

"Gross," Sarah said.

"Anyway, you should have seen that thing... the Golden Freddy costume, I mean... after we doused it with Luminol. Whole thing turned green under the black light. That's still less creepy then what Vance said happened last night, but not much." Tim finished.

"And what about that last one, that Bonnie over there? It's not like the others, for one thing, it has five fingers on each hand." Dinozzo asked.

"Yeah. Don't touch that, it's a deathtrap waiting to go off. It's some sort of hybrid suit, usable either as a costume or as an animatronic body. Right now, the animatronic connectors are wound back into the suit itself - that's why the suit's thicker, to account for these things. But they're held back by flimsy spring style locks, one of those locks fails, and you'll get connection cables and such snapping right into your body."

"Who even came up with that?" Sarah asked, shuddering.

"Don't know. Can't find anything about that one, might even predate the older restaurant. Maybe it's a prototype."

A yell went up from inside the restaurant. "We've got something!" The group hurried inside, where they were armed with metal detectors and more scientific devices, axes, and shovels. Inside a shallow grave lay a mixture of tattered rotted clothing and bones. It was going to take a lot of work from both Ducky and Abby, but the group was sure: These were the four children who died at the diner 20 years ago. There was also a knife, stained with old, putrefying, dried blood.

Now they'd tie the costume to their killer, the weapon to the kills, and the bodies to the victims. It would take work, but they had their killer.

One of the detectives, shaking his head, walked over to congratulate Gibbs. Gibbs was standing back, with his arms crossed, glaring at the crime scene.

"Start with a missing son of a Navy man, end up cracking a twenty year old cold case. That's impressive," the detective said. Gibbs turned his glare on him. "What are you so upset about?"

"That this didn't happen in Virginia," Gibbs said darkly.

"What?" asked Sarah quietly.

"Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013," her brother whispered. "Gibbs wasn't happy about that. Especially in child murderer cases."

"I still think I should dress that... _thing_... up in a uniform and drop it in front of Freddy, just to see what happens," Gibbs said, stalking off. As he passed the team, his glare vanished for a minute. "That was good work," he told them, then met Sarah in the eyes and gave her one of his rare full smiles. "That was good courage you showed," he said, nodding slightly. He considered them for a moment. "Take the rest of the day as a comp for last night."

Tony looked up to the sky, "Thank you," he said in a stage whisper.

* * *

_One week later._

Abby, Sarah, and Tim walked in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Abby was wearing her "Let's Eat!" bib again.

"Didn't think we'd ever get you back in this place, Sarah," Larry said as they took seats.

"I'm not that far out of college that I can't be tempted with free pizza," she admitted, laughing. Her face grew somber. "The burial was yesterday. They buried all four of them together... I'm told they were great friends in life."

"I... I read about that," Larry said, closing his eyes. A minute later, he continued, "Anyway, this was the least I could do for all you, your brother, and his teammates," Larry told them. "Don't think it's going to help save this place, though. Attendance is already down, and Denise is putting this place up for sale. Might be to pay for the lawyer, because she's facing an obstruction of justice charge herself by hiding the secure room."

Sarah looked around, there was only two families there, probably a bad sign at 1 PM on a Saturday.

"I wouldn't count on that," said another voice. Wheeling himself up the corridor was Mike Schmidt, with Phil, the daytime security guard, walking along side him. "Phil and I have set up a Kickstarter to buy this place. Kids still love Freddy Fazbear, and Freddy and his friends still love kids."

"I hope it works." Larry said, with a wry sad smile. "Mike's said I can keep my job if it does."

"You did a good job for some truly awful people," Mike told him. "That's not your fault."

Sarah blinked at Mike without comprehension. "I just don't get it. Why do you want to stay..."?

"More nights at Freddys?" Mike said. He glanced up to the curtains that were currently hiding the animatronics. "Like I said, Bonnie and the bunch still loves kids, and Kids still love them. It's not really their fault they came after us."

"Phone's ringing in my office," Larry said. "Excuse me. I just hope it's not Mrs. Richardson again."

"That's right!" Abby said. "I have an engineer friend who owed me a big favor, so he came over and looked at their code.

"What'd he find, anyway?" Phil asked.

"Some really advanced mad science that he couldn't make the slightest sense out of, "Abby admitted. "But! He also found the facial recognition software... good thing too, if it'd been hardwired, he couldn't have fixed it. Anyway, there were some hard coding in it. It was programmed to recognize uniforms, like police and staff uniforms. But the actual facial recognition had been commented out, like by a lazy first year comp sci major. He just removed the comment prefixes, and he thinks it should be working now."

"Think there's a way to find out," he said. "Mr. McGee, did your boss allow you to bring the video of the formal accusation?

"He did," Tim said, handing him a flash drive. "Why did you want it?" he asked.

"To clear the air," he replied. "Phil? Can I borrow the security tablet, and can you open the curtains for me?"

Phil presented the tablet, and went to open the curtains manually.

Mike rolled himself over to the show stage, plugging in the flash drive. He manipulated the tablet to pull up the video. Then he looked up at Chica and her crewmates. "Hey guys," Mike said. "Do you remember me. Mike Schmidt, the security guard. They got the b..." he remembered there were kids present. "They got the culprit. It's over."

"That can't be right," Tim said. "There's no way they were programmed to look down like that. I mean, right at the tablet?"

After a few minutes, Mike said, "The connections are solid. They're expecting him to plead guilty."

The eyes of all three animatronics flickered shut, then open, and one at at time, the gave Mike a bow.

"Tell Foxy for me, would you?" he asked politely. "And... Bonnie? You owe Sarah an apology." He began to back his wheel chair far enough away from the show stage to turn around. "Thanks, Phil. Put the curtains back onto automatic, would you?"

He rolled his way back to the group.

"That was kind of creepy," Tim told him. "It's not like they're sentient... are they? The programmer didn't actually create an AI, did he?"

"Maybe," said Phil as he rejointed the table, "I've not seen all the weird stuff Sarah and Mike did."

"An AI? Well, that might be one explanation," said Mike. "Say, Tim? Did you ever find the article that Sarah and I found?"

"No," admitted Tim. "But we think Kevin found it and destroyed it."

"Just curious," said Mike. His tone that told the group that he wasn't actually curious.

The pizzas arrived, and they ate in silence for a bit.

"This is actually pretty good," said Sarah. "Chicago is the one true pizza type, but for New York style, this is pretty good."

"I'm just glad you didn't ask us to try the Tabasco, pickles, and peanut butter," Abby told her.

"Hey. Free Pizza, I'm not complaining."

The curtains went up on two of three animatronics on stage.

"Hey, everyone! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's!" Freddy announced in a surprisingly soft voice. "We'd like to..." his head made a deliberate scan of the stage. Then he looked at Bonnie. "Where's Chica?"

The sound of someone eating came from the closed curtain. "Sorry... finishing one last slice."

"Turn off your mic when you're eating, Chica," Bonnie told her.

There was laughter from the kids present. Mike and Sarah looked at each other, and each cracked up.

"What's so funny?" asked Abby.

"Tell you later," said Sarah, wiping her tearing up eyes.

"Like I was saying, we... we... we..." Freddy stuttered. Sarah took a quick sniff of the air, but could only smell the fresh pizza at the table. It smelled pretty good. "We'd like to thank NCIS for their help here at Freddy Fazbear's. And Mr. Mike? I'm sorry." He lowered his head, his animatronic eyes clicking closed for a moment. "Bonnie?"

Bonnie nodded, and looked towards Sarah, meeting her directly in the eyes. "I am sorry too, for last night."

"We're... we're good," Sarah said, confused, and slightly nervous.

Abby had stood quickly. "And NCIS is more than happy to be of service to Freddy Fazbear's," she told them, giving them a deep bow.

"Thank you for your kind words, now-now-now let's strike up the band, shall we?"

Only Abby recognized the tween pop song that they played.

"That's not possible. Someone's playing games with us," said Tim, but Sarah could hear the doubt in his voice.

"One last question, Tim. Where'd those warning phone calls came from?"

Tim stared at him.

* * *

About a week later, a nurse came to see Jeremy. "Got a letter, Mr. Fitzgerald," she told him.

Jeremy sat up in the bed. "Can you open it for me?" he asked politely.

The nurse took out a letter opener, and carefully slit it, then handed it over to her patient.

Jeremy pulled out the extra large greeting card and stared at it. It was a picture of four of the animatronics of Freddy's, the older ones, clearly repaired and recently cleaned. They were in a party room, flanking a man in a wheelchair. Each of them had their head down, Freddy even had his trademark hat in his hands.

_"We're sorry. Please forgive us._"

(A/N: _Thank you for coming to Freddy's Fazbear's, where there's always Help Wanted... but perhaps not now HELP! Needed._

This was almost a Castle/FNAF crossover instead, with Alexa in Sarah McGee's role, but I think this worked better.

I'd like to thank everyone for both the reviews and the favorites. If there's anything you especially liked – or especially didn't, please tell me. I'm an aspiring writer, and feedback can be hard to come by.

-TZ)


End file.
